Review of Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Pax Transatlantica and M.E. Sarotte, Not One Inch

Abstract

The post – Cold War world, it seems, is history. Perhaps the shocks of recent years, be it COVID-19 or Russia’s vastly expanded war in Ukraine, signal the end of an era begun with the revolutions of 1989. Certainly, plenty of pundits seem to think so. But the contours of the post – Cold War world are also increasingly terrain that historians feel comfortable traversing. Both Mary Sarotte and Jussi Hanhimäki have recently taken up that task with two new histories of the post – Cold War order in the Euro-Atlantic region. In Pax Transatlantica, Hanhimäki emphasizes a fundamental continuity as he surveys transatlantic relations from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 through the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic that brought the globe to a virtual standstill in 2020. That sense of continuity is clear from the first pages, which open with a game likely familiar to anyone who has taught course on transatlantic relations – date the citation. Usually, it goes something like this: After being offered up a quotation lamenting the profound divergence between the United States and Europe, players guess when the remark dates from. A slew of responses follow: 2020, 2017, 2003, and the list goes on. Of course, the reason the game works so well is that all the guesses are smart and well-informed, but also wrong. Hanhimäki’s opening example comes from 1973, but the same script works with any number of examples.