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Using your textbooks, notes and the internet, research each of the historiographical schools listed below to complete the table.
Try to summarise their main arguments and who the key historians are. Then try to add examples from the events you have
studied that could be used to support each of the viewpoints:
School of
Historiography
Orthodox/Traditional
Revisionist
Post-Revisionist
Combined both
schools, focused on
policies and
individuals, clear
Stalin was
aggressive
misconceptions and
fears on both sides
century
Stalin was pragmatic, would have made
concessions if USA more willing to take USSR
security concerns more seriously
USSR was very weak after WW2, USA had
nuclear monopoly until 1949 so why USA
scared?
compromise.
New Historians
Benefit from Soviet
archives, move
beyond blame, look
at long-term factors,
third world
viewpoints