The " orthodox " school dominated American historiography from the 1940s until it was challenged by both Wisconsin School and New Left historians in the 1960s . The orthodox school places the responsibility for the Cold War on the Soviet Union and its expansion into Eastern Europe . Thomas A. Bailey , for example , argued in his 1950 '' America Faces Russia '' that the breakdown of postwar peace was the result of Soviet expansionism in the immediate postwar years . Bailey argued Stalin violated promises he had made at Yalta , imposed Soviet-dominated regimes on unwilling Eastern European populations , and conspired to spread communism throughout the world . America responded by drawing the line against Soviet aggression with the Truman Doctrine , and the Marshall Plan
Yalta
Yalta Conference
Historiography of the United States