countries; it is the Russians, not theirnneighbors, who have formed the empirenthat has been dominating Eastern Europenfor centuries. Nor have Russians exhibitednxenophobic or inferiority “symptoms”nto a greater extent than othernpeoples. Eighteenth- and 19th-centurynRussia, with its cosmopolitan Frenchspeakingnaristocracy and burning interestnin things Western European, was not ansociety dominated by fear of or isolationnfrom the West. The statesmen of ImperialnRussia exhibited grandiose overconfidence,nnot fear, paranoid or otherwise,nof invasion. Attitudes cannot be pigeonholed,nas the writers try to do, into a simple,nlasting conflict between a goodn”cosmopolitan, international and pro-nWestern outlook” and a bad “isolationist,nSlavophile, anti-Western, anti-detentenoutlook.” To view “Slavophile” attitudesnas some sort of key to the present regime,nas Ground Zero seems to, is absurd. ThenSlavophiles were a 19th-century intellectualngroup with little lasting impactn(moreover, they were often liberal andnpacifist). Marxism-Leninism clearly derivesnfrom the “Westemi2ed” side of thenRussians.nIhe authors appear to be virtuallynobsessed with psychologizing, with discussingn”images” allegedly held by onenside or the other, rather than with thenexamination of reality, much less normativenjudgments. It is stated, for example,nthat the Great Purges established ann”image” in the West of the U.S.S.R. as antotalitarian state under a ruthless dictatorshipnhostile to a free society. Certainlynthat is not entfrely true, as evidenced bynthe number of people who bought thenStalinist version of the purges; surely thenreal problem was that the image of theninhuman regime corresponded quitenwell with reality.nGround Zero perpetuates more thanna few myths. Without quite endorsing it,nthe authors insinuate that Stalin’s policiesnin the 1930’s were a wise attempt tonprepare for war and were vindicated bynWorld War II. (Murdering and imprisoningntop military men and techniciansnmight be considered by some as an oddnway to get ready for war.) Though thenauthors do not quite endorse the revisionistnversion of the Cold War, they dontransmit quite a few distortions, recountingnvarious events with a peculiar emphasis,nand implying that it was the West’sn”challenge” to the communist takeovernof Eastern Europe that started the ColdnWar. The authors falsely claim that thenSoviets kept their forces in Iran solely tonobtain oil as “reparations”; in reality, evennStalin did not have the gall to demandnreparations from a country which hadnnot attacked the U.S.S.R. Only one with anvery peculiar and biased politics couldndeclare that Greece in 1947 was a “Fascistnmonarchy” and claim that Truman thusnlied to the American people in his “TrumannDoctrine” speech. In general, thenversion of the Cold War proflfered herenis marked by ambiguity, euphemism, andnan attempt to minimize recent Sovietngains. There is no straightforward analysisnof either side’s aims or actions. Onencan only smUe when told that Nixon andnBrezhnev decided on detente because itnwould prevent a “costly arms race.”nGiven their addiction to liberal armscontrolnorthodoxy, the writers do notnappreciate the irony of calling the ABMntreaty the “paramount accomplishmentnof arms control to date.” Detente wasncrippled, it is su^ested, not by Sovietnactions, which allegedly brought themnonly “meager success” in the ThirdnnnWorld, but by the American political opposition’sncriticism in the 1976 campaignnAmong other things, this thesis does lessnthan justice to Jimmy Carter’s valiant rearguardnaction against reality—a strugglenthat Ground Zero is trying to continue.nCjeolfrey Barraclough is a well-knownnBritish historian; as a distinguished expertnon the Middle Ages, he has made manynunimpressive forays into 20th-centurynhistory. From Agadtr to Armageddonnwill not add to his reputation; it is anothernfrog croak in the disarmament-equalspeacenchorus. It is an exercise in confusion,nfelse analogy, and propaganda rathernthan history, based on the fancy thatntoday’s international situation is akin tonthat of the pre-World War I era. TonBarraclough there is literally no basicndifference between the world of todaynand that of 1911, except that the weaponsnhave become more destructive. In thencourse of this book, however, he showsnthat he understands neither the world ofntoday nor the very different one of 70nyears ago.nBarraclough provides a study of thenMoroccan crisis of 1911, which he seesnas a decisive step toward war—thoughnthe crisis was in fact resolved—^and as annevent that exposed the “real” nature ofnthe pre-19l4 international system. Thatnsystem, and today’s, is seen by Barracloughnlargely through the distorting prism ofnthe Hobson myth of imperialism and thenstrange notion that pre-1914 Europe wasna homogeneous society on the vergenof revolutionary unrest and breakdownnwhose ruling class was responsible for thendisasters of 1914-1918. (Once or twicenhe appears to toy with the notion of anuniquely evil Germany, but he fails tondeal with the contradiction this involves.)nThe absurdities here are legion—it may,nfor example, surprise historians to learnnthat there was no important differenceneither in politics or society between EdwardiannBritain and Imperial Russia.nThe selection of the Moroccan crisisnas the mrning point in the road to warnOctober 1983n