Alevel历史好学吗，学到A*要多努力？

The Cold War had now begun. It was the product not of a decision but of a dilemma. 定性句子 Each side felt compelled to adopt policies which the other could not but regard as a threat to the principles of the peace.为什么说是dilemma呢，解释说：每一方认为的必要行动，在对方眼里都是对和平的威胁。

Each then felt compelled to undertake defensive measures. 【Thus the Russians saw no choice but to consolidate their security in Eastern Europe. 】苏联怎么做的怎么想的。【The Americans, regarding Eastern Europe as the first step toward Western Europe, responded by asserting their interest in the zone the Russians deemed vital to their security. 】美国怎么想的怎么做的。The Russians concluded that the West was resuming its old course of capitalist encirclement俄国人的结论是，西方正在恢复其旧有的资本主义包围圈; that it was purposefully laying the foundation for anti- Soviet regimes in the area defined by the blood of centuries as crucial to Russian survival. Each side believed with passion that future international stability depended on the success of its own conception of world order.双方都认为，坚持自己的才是对的才有可能维系和平。都是站在自己的角度考虑问题。 Each side, in pursuing its own clearly indicated and deeply cherished principles, was only confirming the fear of the other that it was bent on aggression.每一步行动都被对方按照自己的逻辑来评判打分，无疑彼此的每一步行动都成为仇视对方的理由。

So the machinery of suspicion and counter-suspicion, action and counteraction, was set in motion.于是形成了怀疑与反怀疑、行动与反行动的运作机制。（这里就是在解释最终冷战爆发的原因）

But , 永远注意这样的转折词。given relations among traditional national states, there was still no reason, even with all the post-war jostling, why this should not have remained a manageable situation. What made it unmanageable, what caused the rapid escalation of the Cold War and in another two years completed the division of Europe, was a set of considerations which this account has thus far excluded.

这里开始打脸先前自己的说辞。这里值得注意的是，考试的文章往往出自相关书籍的节选，所以很容易在一篇文章中出现矛盾的观点。以后同学们写论文就知道，在你写论文的阐述自己的观点时都是要做前人观点的总结。但是就个人而言，在这样的考试中出现节选前后打脸的两种观点不是很严谨的一种行为。

Up to this point, the discussion has considered the split within the wartime coalition as if it were entirely the result of disagreements among national states. Assuming this framework, there was unquestionably a failure of communication between America and Russia, a misperception of signals and, as time went on, a mounting tendency to ascribe ominous motives to the other side. It seems hard, for example, to deny that American post-war policy created genuine difficulties for the Russians and even assumed a threatening aspect for them. But the fundamental explanation of the speed with which the Cold War escalated lies precisely in the fact that the Soviet Union was not a traditional national state. The Soviet Union was a phenomenon very different from America or Britain: it was a totalitarian state endowed with an all-explanatory, all-consuming ideology, committed to the infallibility of government and party, equating dissent with treason, and ruled by a dictator who, for all his quite extraordinary abilities, had his paranoid moments. 这句话对苏联的评价已经带有相当明显的意识形态偏见。

【Stalin and his associates, whatever Roosevelt or Truman did or failed to do, were bound to regard the United States as the enemy, not because of this deed or that, but because of the fact that America was the leading capitalist power and thus, by Leninist belief, unappeasably hostile, driven by the logic of its system to oppose, encircle and destroy Soviet Russia. 】 归因斯大林 Nothing the United States could have done in 1944-45 would have abolished this mistrust, sanctified as it was by Marxist gospel. So long as the United States remained a capitalist democracy, no American policy, given Moscow's theology, could hope to win basic Soviet confidence, and every American action was poisoned from the source. 只要美国是个资本主义国家无论怎么做都没有用。So long as the Soviet Union remained a Marxist state, ideology compelled a steady expansion of Communist power.只要苏联是个社会主义国家无论如何都是要进行意识形态的扩张。从ideology上指责苏联。

What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Cold War to explain your answer. [40]

这篇文章我们可以很清晰的看出两种不同的解读。因此在答题中我们要注意点出两种不同的interpretation。

下面给大家简单的说下答题思路，同学们需要明确的是，P3算是个送分卷，套路清楚了基本上分数就不会底。最重要的是，这个试卷里需要的记忆的知识点并不多，比起历史本身，更像阅读理解，而且还是精读的那种。而中国学生得分不高的很大原因就是英语不行，从一开始文章就没看懂。这里我要对看懂历史材料做个明确的界定，不是说你看个大概就可以了，因为我们需要的不仅仅是big message 还需要你对approach做解读，所以基本上就不能在判断性词汇上出现看不明白的情况。

Interpretation/Approach

The main interpretation is that, whilst both sides in the Cold War share the blame for the mutual suspicion which characterised relations after WW2, the reason why this suspicion escalated so rapidly into the Cold War is explained by the nature of the Soviet state.

The interpretation thus has features both of the traditional and post-revisionist views (and might be seen as post-post-revisionist ). Demonstrating understanding of the Big Message will involve discussion of both these aspects. The extract argues that Marxist ideology was what made the difference in that,whilst the US remained a democracy, the Soviets would inevitably see it as an enemy.

Traditional/Orthodox interpretations of the Cold War were generally produced early after WW2. They blame the Soviet Union and Stalin's expansionism for the Cold War. 苏联错

Revisionist historians challenged this view and shifted more of the focus onto the United States , generally through an economic approach which stressed the alleged aim of the US to establish its economic dominance over Europe. 美国错

Post-revisionists moved towards a more balanced view in which elements of blame were attached to both sides . 两边错

Since the opening of the Soviet archivespost-1990, there has been a shift to attributing prime responsibility to Stalin - a post-post-revisionist stance which often seems very close to the traditional view.