HISTORY 593: LATER MODERN EUROPE--

 THE ORIGINS AND EARLY PHASES OF THE COLD WAR

Instructor: Nicholas Pappas

Office: Estill 326

Office hours: MWF 8-9, M 1-5, W 5-6 [University Center] , T 1-5

Office phone: 294-3617

Home phone: 295-4985

E-Mail address: his_ncp@shsu.edu
URL: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/ 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This syllabus will study the origins and early phases of one of the most complex and convoluted problems in contemporary world history--The Cold War. The Cold War emerged as a problem in World history in the 1940's following the defeat of the Axis in the Second World War. By the late 1940's, two rival super powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, and their alliances began a prolonged conflict which lasted nearly fifty years. Unlike previous conflicts, there were no direct military confrontations between the super powers. Instead it was a prolonged strugggle that pitted the ideologies, economies, societies and cultures of the two blocs in contest over which political/economic system would prevail--the single party socialist system of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc or the pluralistic capitalist (mixed) system of the United States and Western bloc. The development of nuclear weapons and the arms race made direct confrontation virtually unthinkable. Instead the conflict was fiought with diplomacy, propaganda. espionage, and irregular warfare in the former colonial world. There were, however, diplomatic crises that came close to world war (Berlin blockade crisis of 1948-1949, the Cuban Missile Crises of 1962, etc.), as well as bloody indirect conflicts in Asia (Korea, Vietnam Afganistan), Africa (Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia) and the Americas (Nicaragua, San Salvador). The Cold War directly or indirected affected all of humankind until its end with the breakup of the Soviet Union and its bloc in the early 1990's. Its afteraffects are still being gauged and assessed. This course will intensely investigate how and why the Cold War began and look at the first diplomatic and political confrontations in Europe up to the outbreak of the Korean War. Among the topics we will study are: The Russian Revolution and the West; Soviet foreign politicy in the interwar period; United States recognition of the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union, the West and the Rise of the Axis; the Munich Agreement and the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact; the establishment of the anti-Axis alliance; the question of the second front, lend lease and the Soviet Union, the politics of Axis occupation and Anti-Axis resistance, the Big-Three meeting of Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam; the politics of liberation and Allied occupation; the German Question; the Atomic bomb and the Cold War; the Soviet union and the War in the Pacific; the territorial expansion of the Soviet Union versus the economic expansion of the United States; the Sovietization of Eastern Europe; the Greek Civil War; the Truman Doctrine; the Marshall Plan; the Tito-Stalin split; the Berlin Blockade and Airlift; and the policies of the United States and the Soviet union towards decolonization.

 

PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE:

CLASS SCHEDULE AND PROCEDURE:

 

STUDENT REQUIREMENTS AND EVALUATION OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE:

3) Reading assignments: Readings from the text and supplementary sources are given on a weekly basis. Each student is expected to read general assignments (Gaddis, Zubok, Pleshakov) and specific assignments of primary and secondary on a particular topic. The students are expected to discuss assigned readings in class.

REQUIRED READINGS:

PRELIMINARY READINGS AND COURSE OUTLINE FOR THE FIRST SIX WEEKS: