Session 1: How did the Cold War begin?
Assigned Reading:
Craig and Logevall, introduction, chapters 1-2
Engel, et al., Documents 6.15, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.6
Optional Reading Suggestions:
Carol Fink, The Cold War: An International History (2014).
John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (2005).
John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (1997).
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (2005).
Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954 (1998).
Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (1992).
The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-1953 (1994).
J. Samuel Walker, “Prompt and Utter Destruction”: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (revised ed., 2004)
Session 2: Why did the Cold War become global?
Assigned Reading:
Craig and Logevall, chapters 3-4
Engel, et al., Documents 7.11, 8.1, 8.3, 8.4, 8.6
Optional Reading Suggestions:
Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (1994).
Bruce Cummings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2 vols. (1981-1990).
Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988).
William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (1995).
——, The Korean War in World History (2004).
Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (1999).
Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (1996).
Session 3: Why did the Cold War become so dangerous in the early 1960s?
Assigned Reading:
Craig and Logevall, chapters 5-6
Engel, et al., Documents 8.11, 9.4, 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, 10.1, 10.3, 10.4, 10.7
Optional Reading Suggestions:
Thomas J. Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (2001).
H.W. Brands, The Specter of Neutralism: The United States and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947-1960 (1989).
Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (2001).
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2000).
Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (2000).
Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro, & Kennedy, 1958-1964 (1997).
Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (1983).
Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era (2000).
Melvyn P. Leffler, “For the Soul of Mankind”: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (2007).
Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (1999).
Lorenz M. Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (2008).
Gareth Porter, The Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (2005).
Session 4: Why did the Cold War become so dangerous in the early 1980s?
Assigned Reading:
Craig and Logevall, chapters 7-8
Engel, et al., Documents 12.1, 12.4, 12.5, 12.11, 12.12, 13.3, 13.5
Optional Reading Suggestions:
James Blight, Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988 (2012).
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (1982, revised ed. 2005).
William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America (1998).
Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (2002).
Margaret MacMillan, Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World (2007).
Simon Miles, Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow, and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War (2020).
Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (2007).
Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (2003).
Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (2005).
Session 5: Why did the Cold War end in the late 1980s?
Assigned Reading:
Craig and Logevall, chapter 9-conclusion
Engel, et al., Documents 13.6, 13.7, 13.8, 13.9, 13.10, 13.11, 13.12
Optional Reading Suggestions:
Archie Brown, The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War (2020).
John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations (1992).
Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (1999).
Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (2001).
Don Oberdorfer, From the Cold War to a New Era: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1983-1991 (updated ed., 1998).
James Graham Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev’s Adaptability, Reagan’s Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (2013).
