This is a formidable work of historical counter-revisionism emphasizing the brutality of Soviet behavior in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The United States and the West are faulted for weakness toward Moscow, not provocation. The research is deep on the situation in Eastern Europe, skimpy on Asia. The spirit in which Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech is alive and shrill in this book, the first heavy salvo in a projected history of the cold war.