220147 The Cold War in the Americas (K) (WiSe 2020/2021)

The Cold War began right after the end of the Second World War and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its main line of confrontation ran between the two former allies (against Germany) and post-war superpowers, the afore-mentioned Soviet Union and the USA. Soon after the end of the war they formed two Blocs, which were more than just military coalitions, as they also represented two different types ideologies as well as political and economic systems. Empowered by the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons, the superpowers pulled in the rest of the world into their competition. Thus, the Cold War reached global dimensions and turned “hot” more than once into military conflicts on third-party territories, for example in Korea, Vietnam or Afghanistan.
In close cooperation with the seminar (by Olaf Kaltmeier) on the same subject, the main purpose of this historical contextualization will be to further explore the inter-American dimensions and events of the Cold War in a global context. We will seek to better understand cold-war constellations around the world to better grasp the peculiarities of inter-American relations in this period. A strong focus will be on the reading and interpretation of selected written documents across this period. Like the seminar, this course will be in English and requires fluency in that language from its participants

Bibliography

Westad, Odd Arne: The Cold War: A World History. Penguin: Milton Keynes, 2017.
Brands, Hal: Latin America’s Cold War. Harvard University Press: Cambridge (MA), 2010.
Field Jr., Thomas C. et al. (eds.), Latin America and the Global Cold War. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2020.