The New York Times calls him the Dean of Cold War historians.

John Lewis Gattis, one of the most accomplished and revered professors of history in the country,

on Uncommon Knowledge Now.

Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge.

On the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, I'm Peter Robinson.

A native of the little town of Catula, Texas, and will return to Catula, John Lewis

Gaddis became one of the most accomplished historians in the

country, the man the New York Times called the Dean of Cold War historians. Professor Gaddis

received his B.A. MA and doctorate, all from the University of Texas. He has taught since 1997 here

at Yale, where he serves as the Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History.

Professor Gaddis' many books, this is only a partial stack, includes Strategies of Containment

published in 1982, The Cold War, a New History, published in 2005, the Pulitzer Prize-winning

George Kennan, an American Life, published in 2011,

and On Grand Strategy, which appeared in 2018.

Professor John Lewis Gattis, thank you for joining us.

Yes, sir. It's a pleasure to be here.

I can't have the Dean of Cold War historians seated across from me and not ask him to take me through that conflict.

Now, this is a filmed conversation. We're reducing a large topic to the size of a bullion cube.

But could I just begin with a question about historical memory? Your late colleague, Charles Hill, was a friend of mine.

As you know, Charlie used to come to the Hoover Institution.

And he once told me that even among Yale students, ignorance of the Cold War was total.

That was the word Charlie used.

...