International Relations Book Co-Authored by VCU President Trani Published in China

By Anne Buckley

Peking University Press has published "The First Cold War: The Legacy of Woodrow Wilson in U.S. – Soviet Relations," co-authored by Virginia Commonwealth University President Eugene P. Trani and Donald E. Davis, professor of history at Illinois State University.  

With this release, the book now has been published in three languages – English, Russian and Chinese. "The First Cold War" originally was published in August 2002 by the University of Missouri Press and in Russia by Olma-Press in Moscow.

"The First Cold War" breaks new ground in understanding a political struggle that consumed the United States and the Soviet Union for 50 years. Although the Cold War officially dates to the 1940s, its inspiration may be found earlier in how President Wilson and state department officials handled foreign affairs with Russia during the period of the revolution and beyond. The book was made possible with the opening of some Russian archives after 1991, which the authors researched extensively for the manuscript.

The three editions of the book include forewords by former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Professor Vlachaslav Nikonov, President of the Polity Foundation in Russia. Professor Nikonov, Molotov's grandson, is an eminent scholar in Russian-American relations and a former staff member to senior Soviet government officials and a former member of the Duma.

"The First Cold War" has been reviewed positively in scholarly historical journals and newspapers. Trani has lectured extensively on the book, domestically and abroad at venues that have included the Institute of United States Studies at the University of London, the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

The next book by Trani and Davis, "Distorted Mirrors: American Relations with Russia and China, 1891-1991," will be published in early 2009 by the University of Missouri Press in English, VAGRIUS Press, Moscow, in Russian, Peking University Press in Chinese and the University of Cordoba Press in Spanish.