A gateway seminar designed to introduce undergraduates to historical analysis, research, and writing through study of one of the most gripping and hotly debated periods of modern history: the early Cold War contest between the US and the USSR. The course will examine both foreign relations and domestic life, with a focus on the searing impact of a politics of fear. We will explore areas ranging from the dropping of the atomic bomb to McCarthyism, from the crippling of the civil rights movement and the purge of gays from government employment to the devastating 1950s interventions in Iran, Guatemala, and Vietnam.
History