Postgraduate Course: The United States and the Cold War (PGHC11341)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course supplements the School's existing graduate options for the general History MSc and it strengthens the diplomatic history component of the American History MSc programme. Structured along historically and historiographically significant themes, this course does not offer a chronological overview, but rather engages with crucial questions of recent scholarship. In this sense, it is deemed to be particularly appropriate for the graduate level.
The Cold War continues to fascinate students. In the context of modern U.S. foreign policy, it was definitely the seminal event of the 20th century, marking both the (first) zenith of American global power (Henry Luce's much-vaunted 'American Century') and its limits, particularly in the ill-fated intervention in Vietnam.
Although the course focuses primarily on U.S. foreign relations, it will approach the Cold War from a variety of angles and disciplines, including its impact on the domestic scene (e.g. McCarthyism), its particular cultural manifestation at home and abroad, relations with the enemies as much as with the allies. Such a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach is also expected to sensitize the students to different models of writing history.
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| Course description |
Students will develop a deeper appreciation for a crucial phase in the history of U.S. foreign relations. The Cold War not only profoundly marked the twentieth century, it also put the overarching ideological underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy into stark relief because the Soviet Union was always conceived of as an ideological rival rather than only as a 'traditional' enemy. This realization ought to sensitize students to an understanding of foreign relations as based on a certain understanding of the self (and its purpose) and the other (and its difference).
Since the course is more thematic and structured along key themes in history and historiography, students are expected to acquire 'foundational' knowledge and the chronological sweep of the Cold War by themselves, through general literature that will be identified for them.
Methodologically, the course will focus on historiography and primary sources, developing the students' ability to contextualise the events and to hone their skills at employing and dissecting primary sources. In addition, there will be a substantial interdisciplinary element involved, drawing on different approaches to the study of history, e.g. cultural history, political history, sociology and literature.
This approach will familiarize students with the current methodological debates in the field of diplomatic and international history.
The course is designed primarily as an option for students taking the MSc in American History, but it is also open to students from other MSc programmes in the College of Humanities and Social Science, including part-time and visiting students.
D. Content of the Course
1. Introduction: Origins of the Cold War
2. The Nature of the Enemy: Communism at home and abroad
3. Organizing the Defense: The U.S. and its Allies in the 1950s
4. The Means of Defense: The Military, Culture, and Espionage
5. 'Hearts and Minds' and Nation-Building: The Cold War in the World's 'Periphery'
6. Vietnam as a Cold War Conflict
7. Détente
8. The United States and the Second Cold War
9. The Cold War and the Rise of new Global Forces: Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution
10. The End of the Cold War
11. Final Discussion: Who Won the Cold War?
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2014/15, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Following School practice in the assessment of MSc courses, assessment will involve a paper of 3000 words. The essay will count for 80% of the final mark. Non-written skills will also be assessed, counti for 20% of the final mark (10% for a presentation; 10% for contribution to classroom discussions). Digital/Paper copies of students' presentations will be retained and made available to the external examiner.
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| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
After successfully completing the course, students will be able to:
- demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the most important issues and themes connected to the United States during the Cold War;
- independently identify and pursue research topics surrounding the Cold War;
- exhibit an understanding for different conceptual approaches to the study of history;
- analyze and contextualize primary source material;
- arrive at independent, well-argued, well-documented and properly referenced conclusions in their coursework essay;
- demonstrate their skills in group discussion and oral presentations;
- demonstrate their written skills, their analytical and theoretical skills in coursework.
- prepare and present their work in seminars and workshops.
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Reading List
Allin, Dana H., Cold War Illusions: America, Europe, and Soviet Power, 1969-1989 (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1998).
Ambrose, Stephen E., Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938 (8th ed.; London: Penguin, 1997).
Anderson, David L., Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945-1975 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1993).
Appy, Christian G., ed., Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945-1966 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000)
Baritz, Loren, Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us Into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
Barnet, Richard J., The Alliance: America, Europe and Japan: Makers of the Postwar World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983).
Berghahn, Volker R., America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
Brands, H.W., Beyond Vietnam: The Foreign Policies of Lyndon Johnson (College Station: University of Texas Press, 1999).
Cohen, Warren I., America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945-1991 (=Vol. IV, Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations) (Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Creswell, Michael, A Question of Balance: How France and the United States Created Cold War Europe (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2006).
Dean, Robert D., Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001).
Dunbabin, J. P. D. International Relations since 1945: A History in Two Volumes. (New York: Longman, 1994).
Endy, Christopher, Cold War Holidays: American Tourism in France (New Cold War History), (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
Engelhardt, Tom, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation (New York: Basic Books, 1995).
Gaddis, John Lewis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Giauque, Jeffrey Glen, Grand Designs and Visions of Unity: The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganization of Western Europe, 1955-1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
Hanhimaki, Jussi, The Flawed Architect: Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Harper, John Lamberton, American Visions of Europe : Franklin D. Roosevelt, George F. Kennan, and Dean G. Acheson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Herring, George C., America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-75, 3rd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995).
Heller, Francis H., and John Gillingham, eds. NATO: The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).
Hogan, Michael J., A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Isaacson, Walter and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (London: Faber, 1986).
Kaplan, Lawrence. NATO and the United States: The Enduring Alliance. (New York and Oxford: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1994).
Kimball, Jeffrey, Nixon's Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).
Kunz, Diane B. Butter and Guns: America's Cold War Economic Diplomacy (New York: Free Press, 1997).
Kyvig, David E., ed. Reagan and the World (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990).
LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia and the Cold War (8th ed.; New York and London: McGraw-Hill, 1997).
Lasch, Christopher. "The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress for Cultural Freedom," in Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History, ed. Barton J. Bernstein, 322-59 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1968).
Latham, Robert, The Liberal Moment: Modernity, Security and the Making of Postwar International Order (New Directions in World Politics) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
Leffler, Melvyn, The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994).
-----. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008).
Levering, Ralph B. and Vladimir Pechatnov, eds., Debating the Origins of the Cold War: American and Russian Perspectives (Lanham and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002).
Logevall, Fred and Andrew Preston, eds. Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969-1977 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Lundestad, Geir, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
-----. 'Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-1952',
McCauley, Martin, The Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1949 (2nd ed., London: Longman, 2003).
McCormick, Thomas J., America's Half Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After (2nd ed.; Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
McMahon, Robert J. and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., The Origins of the Cold War (4th ed., New York and Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999).
Maddox, Robert J., The New Left and the Origins of the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).
Mann, James, The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War (New York: Penguin Books, 2010).
Moore, R. Laurence and Vaudagna, Maurizio, eds., The American Century in Europe (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 2003).
Ninkovich, Frank, Modernity and Power: A History of the Domino Theory in the Twentieth Century (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
-----, Germany and the United States: The Transformation of the German Question since 1945 (2nd edition; New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995).
Powaski, Ronald E., The Entangling Alliance: The United States and European Security, 1950-1993 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994).
Saunders, Frances Stonor, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: New Press, 1999).
Smyser, William R. From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle over Germany (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).
Suri, Jeremi, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).
Thompson, Nicholas, The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War (New York: Henry Holt, 2009).
Trachtenberg, Marc. A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
Westad, Odd Arne, ed., Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass, 2000).
Woods, Randall B., and Howard Jones, Dawning of the Cold War: The United States' Quest for Order (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1991).
Zelikow, Philip D. and Condoleezza Rice. Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1997).
Zubok, Vladislav and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1996).
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course provides the ability to:
- demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the most important issues and themes connected to the United States during the Cold War;
- independently identify and pursue research topics surrounding the Cold War;
- exhibit an understanding for different conceptual approaches to the study of history;
- analyze and contextualize primary source material;
- arrive at independent, well-argued, well-documented and properly referenced conclusions in their coursework essay;
- demonstrate their skills in group discussion and oral presentations;
- demonstrate their written skills, their analytical and theoretical skills in coursework.
- prepare and present their work in seminars and workshops.
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| Keywords | United States Cold War |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Fabian Hilfrich
Tel: (0131 6)51 3236
Email: Fabian.Hilfrich@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Lindsay Scott
Tel: (0131 6)50 9948
Email: Lindsay.Scott@ed.ac.uk |
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