A mere three years after the end of World War II, the United States government identified that it was in a "struggle for power, or `cold war'" with the Soviet Union-a struggle "from which we cannot withdraw short of eventual national suicide." The Cold War developed with remarkable rapidity, and we will focus our initial efforts in this course to understanding how and why the United States established all the structures of the national security state by 1950, examining as well the counterparts to these structures in the Soviet Union. From this foundation we will then explore the myriad ways that the Cold War shaped domestic and international politics in the succeeding decades, particularly in the Third World, and the forces that led to the Cold War's end. When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, expectations ran high on both sides of the "iron curtain" that democracy and a free market might well flourish in the former Eastern bloc and eventually in the Soviet Union. But while there has been some successes on these fronts, the end of the Cold War has also produced a profound reshuffling of international politics. This instability has forced many reassessments of the Cold War era, with which we will conclude this course. Format: seminar. Evaluation will be based on class participation, weekly response papers, one analytical essay, and a final exam. Group A

Hour: MERRILL