何为“冷战”?——西方英语学界关于“冷战”的界定与研究范畴的争论

What is the Cold War?:The Debates on the Definition and Research Scope of the Cold War in the Western English-Speaking Academia

“冷战”作为概念最初是指美苏之间“不是和平的和平”的状态。到了1947年下半年,杜鲁门政府将与苏联的“冷战”对抗作为美国对外干涉的战略。20世纪50年代中期,冷战对抗延伸到亚非拉国家。冷战时期西方学者就已经开始研究冷战,关注的是冷战的起源和两个超级大国的对抗。与冷战两极对立一样,学者们有关“冷战”的界定和范畴的观点泾渭分明,针锋相对。冷战时期的西方学者主要依赖美国档案,从事以美国为中心的冷战研究。冷战结束之后,美国之外的历史学家提出“冷战研究去中心化”的议题,希望不要仅仅从超级大国的视角来观察和研究冷战,提出强化对冷战时期超级大国对第三世界干涉的研究,这使冷战研究的地理范畴大大扩展,成为过去30多年冷战研究的一个热点。尽管有学者坚持认为,冷战是美国的国家项目,但事实上,冷战既是美国历史的一部分,也是全球史的一部分。

The"Cold War"as a concept initially refers to the status of"peace that is no peace"between the United States and the Soviet Union.By the latter half of 1947,the Truman Administration utilized the"Cold War"confrontation with the Soviet Union as America's foreign intervention strategy.By the middle of the 1950s,the Cold War confrontation extended to Asia,Africa,and Latin America.During the Cold War,Western scholars started to conduct studies on the Cold War,concerning the origins of the Cold War and the superpower confrontations.Almost identical to the fierce conflict between the U.S.and the Soviet Union during the Cold War,Cold War scholars sharply contested the definition and research scope of the Cold War studies.In general,they couldn't use foreign archives,mainly relying on U.S.archives and conducting"U.S.-centered Cold War studies".After the end of the Cold War,historians outside of the U.S.have advocated"de-centering the Cold War",hoping to observe and study the Cold War not being confined to a superpower lens and reinforcing the study of the superpower interventions in the Third World.This has greatly extended the geographical scope of the Cold War studies and has thus become a fad in the last 30 years.Although some scholars insist that the Cold War is a U.S.national project,in fact,the Cold War is partly U.S.history and partly World history.