Allan M. Winkler in his book Modern America: The United States from World War II to the Present relates the history of what came to be called the Cold War period up to 1985, several years before the Cold War effectively ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Empire. The author begins with World War II because he feels "that the war had a profound impact in shaping the nature of postwar society" (xi). He notes that the war developed differently in the United States than it did anywhere else--the U.S. came to the war later, fought overseas, experienced no devastation at home, and gained a confidence that would last beyond the war. The author emphasizes the diplomacy of the war period and the nature of the various alliances that were formed at that time. During and after the war, various conferences were held among the Allies, conferences that would become statements of principle and the basis of post-war institutions like the United Nations. In the postwar period, the U.S. experienced a business boom. Also, the U.S. found itself with a bureaucracy that had been developed partly for the New Deal and partly for waging war, and now it was retained to control and redirect American energies domestically.
The author shows how American society developed because of the war and also because of the conclusion of the war. After the war, American society had to face new challenges with the polarization of the world into two opposing camps, the proliferation of nuclear weaponry, the war in Korea showing a new power in China and a new importance for Asia, and fears of communist propaganda and infiltration at home. The image created of the period, through the 1950s, is an image of a society in fear, a society with new enemies, enemies not as clearly defined as earlier enemies. This was a society at war without there being a war, and thus the "war" is now at home as well as abroad.
The Truman era is discussed in terms of problems with...