Dr Eirini Karamouzi Teaching History at post16 and beyond Conference Tuesday 16 June 2015 Cold War Studies 1 Why Study the Cold War 2 Old and New Historiography 3 Five paradigms Ideology Politics and Economics Technology and Arms Race Culture and Propaganda Human Rights ID: 932899
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Slide1
Recent Research on Cold War Studies
Dr
Eirini Karamouzi
Teaching History at post-16 and beyond Conference
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
Slide2Cold War Studies
1) Why Study the Cold War?
2) Old and New Historiography
3) Five paradigms: Ideology; Politics and Economics; Technology and Arms Race; Culture and Propaganda; Human Rights;
4) Primary Sources
5) Questions
Slide3Why Study the Cold War?
25 years after the end of the Cold war, we stand a precise moment when scholarship and sources are coming together
What
impact did the Cold War have? Did the Cold War define the post war period?
What was the Cold War? Is there a definitive history of the Cold War
?
Historisation
of the Cold War
25
th
anniversary and talk about a new Cold War
(Edward
Lucas) has
galvanized
the literature: more emphasis on the World that the Cold War
made
GOAL is to offer out students factual grounding and conceptual apparatus necessary to understand the contemporary world
Slide4The Old Historiography
Orthodox
: Those who blamed Soviet aggression
(Arthur Schlesinger)
Revisionist
: Those who blamed US expansionism
(William
Appleman
Williams)
Post-Revisionist
(or Realist): Those who focus on concepts of national interest
; no assignment of blame
(John Lewis Gaddis I)
Neo-Orthodox
: Those who return to Stalin’s culpability
(Gaddis II, of
We Now Know
)
Slide5The New Historiography: Multi-archival, multipolar (analytical frameworks), multilevel (crossroads of national, transnational and global perspectives)
Material factors
vs.
ideal concepts
‘Young’ Gaddis vs. Westad
Authoritarian
rule vs.
US global power
‘Late’ Gaddis vs. Anders
Stephanson
Europe
vs. the
Third World
Federico Romero vs. Michael Latham
Slide6Major Publications
Cambridge History of the Cold War :3 volumes
The Routledge History of the Cold War
Two journals dedicated on the Cold War:
Cold War History, LSE:
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fcwh20/
current
Journal
of Cold War Studies, Harvard:
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/jcws
Slide7What is new about Cold War history in the last decade?
the
pervasiveness of the Cold War has often been used as an argument for studying it on its own terms; the bipolar system and its dynamics dominated all the nooks and crannies of the societies involves. But its very pervasiveness means that it was also permeable and subject to a myriad of influences and transformative trends
.
Slide8The only dangerous form of observation is the idea that the part being observed is the only constituent part of the whole
Odd Arne Westad (LSE): proponent of intellectual and methodological pluralism
Slide9New Cold War History
BUT with such a pluralistic approach: how do we untangle the Cold from all the other strands of 20
th
century history; what was distinctive about this period? Otherwise we
may dilute
its importance and
obscure
the centrality of many other factors both in the domestic and international realms
;decentring the field from diplomatic and military realm Cold War risks of losing its War character
One or many Cold War Histories?
Cold War affected different groups in a multiplicity of ways, based on location and temporality;
Slide10New Cold War History
Also do we need to ‘take off the Cold War lenses” especially in the case of the Third World or even postwar
Europe
?
Major theme the importance of a
Global Cold War:
major advanced on Latin America studies, Africa, Southeast Asia
A focus on Europe: Walter
LaFeber
observed in his classic America, Russia and the Cold War ‘He controls all of Europe is well on his way towards controlling the whole world’. HOWEVER instead of an object of superpower politics, more importance attached to European actors in transforming the international arena
Slide11Federico Romero
Cold
War Historiography at the Crossroads, Cold War History, 14:4 (2014), 685-702
How is the Cold War understood in an expanding and
diversifying historiographical
field? Conceptual precision and specificity seem to be
giving way
to a looser understanding of the Cold War as an era that
encompassed different
although interconnected conflicts and transformations. Some
scholars ask for specificity and consistency while current centrifugal trends point to multiple approaches and centres
of interest. Diversity is galvanising the field, but historians need to (re)define their object of inquiry and strive for at least a minimum of conceptual clarity. In particular, we should aim at a broad cultural understanding of the Cold War, contextualise it in larger processes of historical change
without confusing the two dimensions, and reassess relations between Europe and other Cold War contexts.
Slide12A. Ideology as a Modernization Project
Engerman: Russia’s 1917 October revolutions triggered confrontation between USA and SU: Became global in the 40s
A battle of ideas: American liberalism
vs
Soviet Communism
Both ideologies progressive, universalistic and deterministic/
messianistic
; both presented as projects on modernity seeking to supplant moribund European traditions
Slide13B. Politics
and Economics
ECSC, 1950
Treaty of Rome (EEC), 1957
NATO, 1949
Slide14Politics and Economics
Cold War and European Integration:
interaction
evolution
of the Cold War and the gradual development of
today’s European
Union (EU) was so intimate as to make it vital for historians
to break
down the barriers between the two fields
.
Early EEC; Maastricht/German Unification; enlargementsFor example, geopolitical Cold War reasons explain Greek entry to the EEC:
Slide15C
. Technology
and Arms Race
Slide16Technology and Arms Race
Nuclear weapons essential about the cold war, distinguishes it fundamentally from other conflicts. A Cold War without nuclear weapons seems unthinkable
BUT Fear of nuclear annihilation made the Cold War ‘over the long pull’: defeat capitalism
or
communism by means of peaceful competition: culture- technological innovation, consumer satisfaction
Slide17Technology
and Arms Race
Westad: Technology was the epitome of the two modernist USA and Soviet ideologies and the systems they represented:
attempts at simplifying and conquering a complex world
How did technology contribute to the many weapons with which the Cold War was fought
?
Crucial areas of technology that were opened up though defence related funding include navigation systems, space exploration, and even genetics
MOST IMPORTANT: Funding in electronics and communications- the most important areas of technology that contributed to global changes and the way the conflict
ended
Reynolds: the technologies that have shaped the late 20
th
c, though derived from CW science, are emphatically the products of capitalism , not communism ( computer, transistors)
Slide18C. Cultural and Propaganda
Slide19C. Cultural and Propaganda
Despite two superpower domination: the implementation of cultural policies neither monolithic nor uniformly successful. local factor important; a process of cultural adaptation and rejection on both sides of the Iron Curtain
Cold War privileged Cultural relations in an unprecedented degree:
The repressive side of cold war culture, although significant, should not obscure how the Cold War also helped secure progressive and inclusive reforms.
Importance of popular culture; but bear in mind the cultural version of Cold War triumphalism in
historiography: Americanization:
Mainly used for the period after 1945-USA by virtue of technological-military-industrial prowess and Cold War dynamics abandon isolationism, engage in western Europe reconstruction
Slide20D. Human Rights
Akira
Iriye
: The Human Rights Revolution (Oxford, 2012)
Since 1945, the human rights have been defined and redefined according to political needs, moral imperatives, and local contexts’.
Role of Human Rights in ending the Cold war: Snyder and Thomas show how the ‘Helsinki process’ facilitated the rise of organized dissent in Eastern Europe and pressures for human rights reforms in the Soviet Union; NOT containment won the Cold War BUT efforts of activists, lawyers, minority-right advocates across the borders that set the stage for the political earthquakes that followed.
Slide21Primary Resources
Hanhimanki
/Westad: The
Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness
Accounts ( Oxford University Press, 2013)
Judge, Edward & Langdon, John (eds.)
,
The Cold War: A Global History with Documents
, Pearson,
2010
Jane Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, Oxford University press, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1953
Slide22Primary Sources
a) The National Archives: Cabinet Papers, 1915-1986
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/
b
) Foreign Relations of the United
States ( NOW all digitalised)
The
Foreign Relations of the United States
(FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic
activity
https://history.state.gov/
historicaldocumentsc) The US Presidential Libraries hold a wealth of documents
Slide23Primary Sources
d) Wilson Center, Digital Archive
The Digital Archive contains once-secret documents from governments ( and especially the Soviet Union) all across the globe, uncovering new sources and providing fresh insights into the history of international relations and diplomacy. It collects the research of two Wilson Center projects which focus on the interrelated histories of the
Cold War
, and
Nuclear Proliferation
. The third link points to publications based on these declassified documents
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/theme/cold-war-history
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/theme/nuclear-history
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/program-publications/Cold%20War%20International%20History%20Project
Slide24Primary S
ources
CVCE
: The research infrastructure on European
Integration
http
://www.cvce.eu/en/hom
Kings College London: Oral History Witness Seminars:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/icbh/witness/OnlineArchive.aspx
British Cartoon Archives holds collections by over three hundred cartoonistshttp://www.cartoons.ac.uk/collections-bca
Slide25Reviews
If you are interested in reviews of major works on Cold War or roundtables, the h-diplo is the best sources which is part of the h- net:
H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social
Sciences
an online scholarly review resource
.
https://networks.h-net.org/h-
diplo
Slide26Questions?
Thank you