UNIVERSITY OF KENT
Module Specification
1. The title of the module.
HI864 The Cold War, 1941-1991
2. The School which will be responsible for management of the module.
History
3. The Start Date of the Module.
Spring 2011.
4. The cohort of students (onwards) to which the module will be applicable.
MA candidates
5. The number of students expected to take the module.
10-15
6. Modules to be withdrawn on the introduction of this proposed module and consultation with other relevant Departments and Faculties regarding the withdrawal.
None.
7. The level of the module (eg Certificate [C], Intermediate [I], Honours [H] or Postgraduate [M]).
M
8. The number of credits which the module represents.
20
9. Which term(s) the module is to be taught in (or other teaching pattern).
Spring
10. Prerequisite and co-requisite modules.
None
11. The programmes of study to which the module contributes.
The module is most relevant to the MA programme in International Conflict and Security Studies and International Relations, but it will be open to all MA students at the BSIS.
12. The intended subject specific learning outcomes and, as appropriate, their relationship to the programme learning outcomes of the MA in International Relations.
On successful completion of the module, students will be able to
· SLO1: Provide a firm historical grounding for understanding the origins, intensity, length, and impact of the Cold War;
· SLO2: Illustrate through the use of cases and examples the complex causes and dynamics of Cold War related crises and armed conflicts;
SLO3: Critically identify key debates in the discipline of history relating to the study of the Cold War;
SLO4: Outline and understand the main social scientific concepts in the study of the Cold War;
SLO5: Highlight those areas where comparisons between different scholarly approaches to the study of the Cold War will be most fruitful;
SLO6: Appreciate how political scientists (especially those in International Relations and International Conflict Analysis) and historians of international relations and conflict have understood the significance of the Cold War by writing an essay on a specific subject where comparisons of scholarship can be made.
These specific learning outcomes contribute to achieving the learning outcomes of our post-graduate programmes by demonstrating knowledge of the following:
§ demonstrate specialised knowledge of, and critical insight into, the key historical and theoretical issues in their programme area, together with familiarity with appropriate bibliographical sources;
§ apply theoretical and conceptual frameworks to the analysis of Cold War elated crises and conflicts;
§ use a variety of research methods and evaluate critically their application in the scholarly literature;
§ conduct research in history and international relations demonstrating awareness of epistemological, methodological and ethical principles.
13. The intended generic learning outcomes (GLO) and, as appropriate, their relationship to programme learning outcomes.
Students who successfully complete this module
GLO1: will be able to appreciate scholarly debates at the forefront of the discipline of history;
GLO2: will engage critically with the vocabulary, concepts, theories and methods of historical analysis;
GLO3: will have a comprehensive understanding of methods and methodologies of related disciplines;
GLO4: will develop reasoned arguments, supported by relevant information, and exercise critical thinking;
GLO5: will have a level of conceptual understanding that will allow them to critically evaluate research, advanced scholarship and methodologies and argue alternative approaches;
GLO6: will describe, evaluate, and apply different approaches involved in collecting, analysing, and presenting social scientific and historical information;
GLO7: will be able to engage in academic and professional communication orally and in writing;
GLO8: will have independent learning ability required for continuing professional study;
GLO9: collaborate with others and contribute effectively to the achievement of common goals.
By helping students to progress towards these generic learning outcomes, the module contributes to achieving the general aims of our postgraduate programmes, which aim to:
§ provide students with an advanced training in their relevant programmes of study;
§ develop the students’ transferable skills emphasizing research skills, analytical and conceptual skills, independent work and self-organisation;
§ develop reasoned arguments, synthesise relevant information and exercise critical judgement;
§ work independently, demonstrating initiative, self-organization and time-management.
14. A synopsis of the curriculum.
The chronological period covered by this module is from 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Churchill met Roosevelt to sign the Atlantic Charter, and the United States entered the wars in Europe and the Pacific, to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. However, concepts and vocabulary will be analyzed in the first lecture, the long-range and short-term origins of the Cold War will be dealt with in the second lecture, while the legacy of the Cold War will be examined in the last lecture. The specific lecture titles follow:
Lecture I: The Cold War as a Subject of Scholarly Investigation, Interpretive Debate, and Ideological Polemics. (split between weeks 1 and 2).
Lecture II: The Long-Range and Immediate Origins of the Cold War.
Lecture III: The Division of Europe, 1945-1949: Reasons and Responsibilities
Lecture IV: The Cold War Widens and Turns Hot, 1949-1953.
Lecture V: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Khrushchev: American-Soviet Rivalry at Its Zenith, 1954-1963.
Lecture VI: Holding Back the Dominoes in Southeast Asia: America’s Descent into the Quagmire and Its Ignominious Exit, 1954-1975.
Lecture: VII: The Cold War and the Middle East, 1948-1991.
Lecture VIII: U.S.-Soviet Relations from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the Demise of Détente, 1963-1980.
Lecture IX: China’s Cold War: From Revolution to Tiananmen, 1949-1989.
Lecture X: Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War, 1981-1991.
Lecture XI: The Cold War: Lessons and Legacies.
The aim is to:
· Provide a firm historical grounding for understanding why the Cold War occurred and why it ended as it did;
· Highlight those events where comparisons can be made in order to enhance respect for the complexity of the interaction between ideological aims and political outcomes;
And enable students to:
· Acquire, through empirical analysis, a basis on which to make comparisons and draw inferences;
· Understand how the history of the Cold War has been used by scholars in IR and ICA to test hypotheses and theories;
· Appreciate why political scientists and historians of international relations and conflict differ in their analyses and interpretations of events related to the Cold War through diversified readings and writing critical essays.
The mark in this module is based on a Topic Proposal Essay of +/- 1000 words, which counts for 15%, and a Final Essay of 4500-5000 words, which counts for 85%.
The major requirement for this module is a 4500-5000-word analytical essay on a subject related to the Cold War. The topic may be one that focuses on the problem of the origins of the Cold War, on some aspect of the Cold War itself, or on why and how the Cold War ended. Students may prefer to concentrate on interstate relations or on specific Cold War crises and armed conflicts. However, students are permitted to focus on questions of policy formation as well as on domestic issues such as the phenomenon of McCarthyism in the United States. The roles played by the arms’ race, the military-industrial complex, and the politics of arms’ procurement as factors influencing American and Soviet policies during the Cold War are particularly interesting. Espionage and intelligence are also interesting subjects that can be examined in the context of the Cold War. Needless to say, students may want to focus on key personalities, who played important roles during the Cold War.
The research for the essay should include studies by both historians and specialists (political scientists) in International Relations (IR) and International Conflict and Security Studies (ICS). It is essential that students be aware of the level-of-analysis problem inherent in the analysis that they undertake. They should demonstrate wide reading in the relevant historical and theoretical literature. Hence, the bibliography should include books and scholarly articles by historians, social scientists, and professional journalists writing on the subject. The ultimate objective of the essay is to provide the reader with an in-depth and comparative analysis of the chosen topic. In the end, the reader should be able to appreciate how well the student researcher and writer understands the complexity of arriving at historical interpretations and why scholars draw sometimes very contrasting conclusions on the basis of similar, if not identical, factual material.
The final essay will be evaluated according to the Assessment Criteria adopted by the Department of History at the University of Kent. Especially important are: structure and presentation; extent and quality of research; quality of analysis and content; and quality of writing.
Each student must submit to Dr. Palo a +/- 1000-word (double-spaced) topic proposal plus a preliminary bibliography. The proposal must include (1) a statement as to why you chose the topic you did; (2) how you propose to focus your essay in terms of what points of comparison you are going to use to analyze the works you have selected; and (3) a detailed outline. The preliminary bibliography can include the textbooks and works excerpted in the Reader, but it must also include at least six books and/or articles that you have found yourself. A short annotation explaining why you chose them should accompany these additional works. The remarks on the topic proposal are aimed at helping the student orient his/her research project.
15. Indicative Reading List
Books:
Allison, Graham T., and Philip Zelikow. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile
Crisis 2nd edition (1999).
Bill, James A. The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (1988).
Brzezinski, Zbigniew K. Game Plan: A Geostrategic Framework for the Conduct of the U.S.-
Soviet Contest (1986).
Burk, Kathleen, and Melvyn Stokes. The United States and the European Alliance since 1945
(1999).
Chen Jian. Mao’s China and the Cold War (2001).
Cockatt, Richard. The Fifty Years’ War, 1941-1991 (1995).
Costigliola, Frank. France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II
(1992).
Cronin, James E. The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos and the Return of History
(1996).
Dockrill, Saki R., and Geraint Hughes, eds. Cold War History (2006).
Ellison, James. The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis: Rising to the Gaullist
Challenge, 1963-68 (2007).
Feis, Herbert. From Trust to Terror: The Onset of the Cold War, 1945-1950 (1970).
Foglesong, David S. The American Mission and the “Evil Empire”: The Crusade for a “Free
Russia” Since 1881 (2007).
Foot, Rosemary. The Practice of Power: US Relations With China since 1949 (1995).
Freedman, Lawrence. Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Laos, and Vietnam (2000).
Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an
American Adversary (2006).
Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (1997).
Gardner, Lloyd C. The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the
1970s to the Present (2008).
Garthoff, Raymond. Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations Nixon to Reagan
(1985).
Halliday, Jon, and Bruce Cumings. Korea: The Unknown War (1988).
Hanhimäki, Jussi M., and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cold War: A History in Documents
and Eyewitness Accounts (2003).
Heiss, Mary Ann. Empire and Nationhood: The United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil,
1950-1954 (1997).
Heller, Francis Howard, and John R. Gillingham, NATO: The Founding of the Atlantic
Alliance and the Integration of Europe (1992).
Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam 1950-1975 2nd
edition (1986).
Hogan, Michael J. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western
Europe, 1947-1952 (1987).
Hogan, Michael J. A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National
Security State, 1945-1954 (1998).
Holloway, David. Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939-1956
(1994).
Hunt, Michael H. The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained & Wielded
Global Dominance (2007).
Iriye, Akira. The Cold War in Asia: A Historical Introduction (1974).
Keddie, Nikki R., and Mark J. Gasiorowski, eds. Neither East nor West: Iran, the Soviet
Union, and the United States (1990).
Kolko, Gabriel. Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980
(1988).
Larson, Deborah Welch. Anatomy of Mistrust: U.S.-Soviet Relations During the Cold War
(1997).
Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman
Administration, and the Cold War (1992).
Leffler, Melvyn P. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the
Cold War (2007).
McCormick, Thomas J. America’s Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold
War (1995)).
McCauley, Martin. Origins of the Cold War Revised 3rd edition (2008).
McCauley, Martin. Russia, America, and the Cold War, 1949-1991 Revised 2nd edition
(2008).
Miscamble, Wilson D. From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War
(2007).
Moyar, Mark. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 (2006).
Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation,
1945-1949 (1996).
Osgood, Kenneth. Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and
Abroad (2006).
Painter, David S., and Melvyn P. Leffler. Origins of the Cold War: An International History
(1994).
Paterson, Thomas G. On Every Front: The Making and Unmaking of the Cold War, Revised
edition (1992).
Pons, Silvio, and Federico Romero, eds. Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues,
Interpretations, Periodizations (2005).
Powaski, Ronald E. The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917-1991
(1998).
Roberts, Geoffrey. The Soviet Union in World Politics: Coexistence, Revolution and Cold
War, 1945-1991 (1999).
Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin’s Wars. From World War to Cold War 19391953 (2007).
Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975 (1997).
Statler, Kathryn C., and Andrew L. Johns, eds. The Eisenhower Administration, the Third
World, and the Globalization of the Cold War (2006);
Suri, Jeremi. Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (2003).
Wagnleitner, Reinhold. Coca-colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the