History of International Relations from 1945 (Lecture)

The course will give an exciting opportunity to the students to
study the history of international relations in the Cold War period on the basis of recently declassified
archival documents with the help of one of the most experienced researchers in the field.
During the course we will examine the origins and the unfolding of the Cold War. The détente
process emerging in the middle of the nineteen-fifties will be presented by a new approach as well
as the analysis of the different types of international crises during the Cold War will show that some
of the most spectacular crises of the era were in reality not genuine East–West conflicts. Due
attention will be paid to NATO and the Warsaw Pact as institutions of foreign policy coordination, as
well as to the German question and European security. The last classes will be devoted to the
analysis of the transformation of East–West relations in the Gorbachev era and to the end of the Cold
War.
The course will be based predominantly on the findings of the "new Cold War history" with a special
focus on the policy of the Eastern Bloc. Besides studying readings from the most up to date literature
on the topic, during the course students will use and analyze published and unpublished archival
documents from both sides of the Cold War divide. Most of the declassified Soviet Bloc documents
are available in English translation on the web sites of the National Security Archive,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/the Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War International History Project
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=1409
and the Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP) (formerly: Parallel History Project on
NATO and the Warsaw Pact) http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/
while many other such documents are in the possession of the Cold War History Research Center in
Budapest www.coldwar.hu.