Official Opening of the Centre
8 December 2004
On Wednesday 8 December 2004 the Cold War Studies Centre hosted a reception to mark its official opening.
Representatives of the diplomatic corps in London, government officials, representatives of other British academic institutions, public figures, friends and associates of the Centre and LSE staff helped celebrate this special occasion with us.
A lecture by Prof. G John Ikenberry of Princeton University followed the formal reception, entitled From Containment to Pre-Emption: American Grand Strategies Revisited.
Tthis lecture explored explore the complex links between the most important event of the second half of the 20th century - the Cold War and the defining conflict of the new millennium - the war on terror.
G John Ikenberry was Peter F Krogh Professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice at Georgetown University.
CWSC Public Lecture: 17 November 2004, 6:30 pm
World Orders in Chaos: From the End of the Cold War to the War on Terror
Speaker: Professor Richard Ned Lebow (Dartmouth College, USA)
CWSC Public Lecture: 11 November 2004, 6:30 pm
Rethinking the Origins of September 11: Afghanistan, Islam, and the Collapse of the Soviet Empire
Speaker: Professor Fred Halliday (Department of International Relations, LSE)
CWSC Public Lecture and Book Launch 2 November, 2004, 6.30 pm
The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy
Speaker: Professor Jussi Hanhimaki (Geneva)
CWSC Public Lecture
20 October 2004, 6:30 pm
American Right or Wrong? American Nationalism from the War on Communism to the War on Terror
Speaker: Dr Anatol Lieven (Senior Fellow, Carnegie Institute, Washington DC)
CWSC Public Lecture
12 October 2004, 6:30 pm
Why the Bush Doctrine Crashed and Burned in Iraq
Speaker: Professor John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago)
Conference: Ostpolitik - Westpolitik
22-24 September 2004
Pembroke College, Oxford
As part of the 'De-Centering the Cold War programme', the purpose of this conference was to begin breaking down what has always appeared a rather artificial divorce in the historiography between the history of the cold war and the history of European integration. The two processes ran simultaneously and involved many of the same actors, both in terms of states and individuals, and it therefore seemed improbable that they could ever have developed entirely in isolation one from the other.
The conference brought together a small, but high calibre group of international specialists in both fields, to discuss the issue for two and half days. The papers, although very high quality, were deliberately kept short (abstracts appear below), allowing the maximum possible time for discussion. This amply confirmed that there were indeed inter-linkages, but that these links were neither as straight forward as the conference organisers had perhaps expected, nor constant over the period under review.
The gap in different national attitudes also emerged very clearly. And the extent to which the highest level politicians have to consider inter-linkages and interconnections that both their more junior counterparts and their civil servants are able to ignore was repeatedly emphasised.
Conference papers included:
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Georges Henri Soutou (Paris): The Linkage Between European Integration And Detente: De Gaulle's And Pompidou's Contrasting Approaches (1965-1973).
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Garret Martin (LSE): 'Grandeur et Dépendances': The Dilemmas of Gaullist Foreign Policy, September 1967-April 1968.
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Wilfried Loth (Essen): Détente and European Integration in the policies of Willy Brandt and Georges Pompidou.
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James Ellison (London): Anglo-American relations, the future of the Atlantic Alliance and detente, 1966-69.
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Helen Parr (Keele): Anglo-French relations, detente and Britain's second application for membership of the EEC, 1966-1967.
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Jan van der Harst (Groningen): The Netherlands, the Gaullist challenge and the evolving Cold War, 1966-1973.
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Piers Ludlow (LSE): An Insulated Community? The Community Institutions and the Cold War, 1965-1970.
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Jussi Hanhimaki (Geneva): The Cold War and European Integration - the US view-point.
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Andreas Wilkens (Metz): New Ostpolitik and European Integration: Concepts and Policies in the Brandt Era.
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Conclusions
Summer Seminar in Cold War History
1-7 August 2004,
Cambridge University
Sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York.
This was the second annual week-long seminar, a result of cooperation between the CWSC and the Gilder-Lehrman Institute from New York.
American High school history teachers, together with their Russian colleagues, attended lectures on Cold War history by Professor OA Westad, Professor Michael Cox and Dr Svetozar Rajak, all from the CWSC, Dr Sophie Quinn-Judge, and by Anita Seth, a Yale University graduate student. Beside having the chance to attend lectures by Cold War specialist and increase their knowledge of the Cold War, American and Russian teachers had a rare opportunity to exchange experiences in teaching the subject of the Cold War and address the issue of existing differences in the perceptions and experiences of the Cold War in Russia and the United States.
Programme of lectures:
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The Origins of the Cold War: Historians' Perspectives, by Professor Westad
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The Breakdown of the Grand Alliance, 1945-49, by Professor Westad
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Cold War in the Balkans, by Dr Rajak
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Using Video Sources in Teaching Cold War History, by Anita Seth
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The Korean War, by Professor Westad
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Cold War History website demonstration by Dr Rajak and Professor Westad
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Eastern Europe under Communism, by Dr Rajak
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The Cuban Missile Crisis, by Professor Westad
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The Vietnam War, by Dr Quinn-Judge
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The Cold War in the Third World, by Professor Westad
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Social Life in the Cold War, by Anita Seth
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The Rise and Fall of Détente, by Professor Westad
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From the Cold War to the War on Terror, by Professor Cox
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Video and Discussion: How the Cold War Ended
Cold War Studies Centre Seminar
26 February 2004
Professor Hope Harrison (George Washington University)
Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961
Cold War Studies Centre Seminar
17 February 2004
Garret Martin (International History, LSE):
'Visionnaire Ou Mercenaire'? France and the Western World, 1963-1965
Cold War Studies Centre Seminar
3 February 2004
Michael Lumbers (LSE)
The Irony of Vietnam: the Johnson administration's tentative bridge-building to China, 1965-66
Find out more about the history of IDEAS.