Containment Strategies in Perspective

John L. Gaddis's classic 1982 book Strategies of Containment, now out in a revised and expanded edition, characterizes the Cold War strategies of successive U.S. administrations as either symmetric or asymmetric. The new edition of the book retains this distinction and applies it to the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Gaddis incorporates a few findings from research that has appeared since 1982, but the original text has undergone fewer revisions than one might have expected. Gaddis's general approach, and many of his specific claims, are bound to provoke objections, but historians and political scientists will find his analysis stimulating and provocative.