Professor Arne Westad, B206

MA/MSc History of International Relations, MSc Theory and History of International Relations, MSc History of Empires, LSE-PKU Double Degree in International Affairs and LSE-Columbia University Double Degree in International and World History. This course is capped at 30 students.

This course examines the rise of the Cold War as an international system during the period from the Russian Revolution up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The course centres on how markets, ideas, and cultural interactions affected political discourse, diplomatic events, and strategic thinking in the early part of the Cold War. The main part of the course material is from the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Cold War, edited by Professor Westad.

There will be meetings on the following topics:  the Cold War and the International History of the Twentieth Century; Ideology and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-62; The Configuration of the International System and the Origins of the Cold War; The World Economy and the Cold War, 1917-1962; The United States and the Post-War World, 1944-1953, The Soviet Union and the Postwar World, 1944-1953; Great Britain and the Cold War from World War II to Suez; The Marshall Plan and the Formation of NATO; The Division of Germany; The Sovietization of Eastern Europe, 1944-1953; Cold War in the Balkans from the Greek Civil War to Soviet-Yugoslav Normalization; The United States and Japan, 1945-1960; The Communist Victory in China and the Origins of the Korean War; The Korean War; The Sino-Soviet Alliance and the Cold War in Asia, 1954-1962; Eastern Europe from 1953 to the Aftermath of the 1956 Revolutions; Soviet Foreign Policy from Stalin’s Death to the Cuban Missile Crisis; US National Security Policy from Eisenhower to Kennedy; Nuclear Weapons and the Escalation of the Cold War, 1945-62; Culture and Cold War in Europe, 1945-1962.

Eleven one-hour survey lectures and 22 one-and-a-half hour seminars. 44 contact hours in all. The lectures are joint with HY206, covering the following topics: the New International History of the Cold War; the Breakdown of the Grand Alliance, 1943-1946; the Division of Germany; the Iron Curtain; the Marshall Plan and NATO; the United States and Japan, 1945-1965; the Outbreak of The Korean War (SC); US Cold War Interventions; the Sino-Soviet Alliance; the 1956 Hungarian Revolution; the Cuban Revolution and the 1962 Missile Crisis.

Each student is required to write four essays during the year, including one assessed essay and one mock examination.

O.A. Westad and M. Leffler, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War(selected chs.); O.A. Westad and J. Hanhimaki, eds., The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts; O.A. Westad, ed., Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory; D. Reynolds, One World Divided.

One assessed essay due in the LT (25%) and a three-hour written examination in the ST (75%).