The Cold War and the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years, by Noam Chomsky, et al./Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences during the Cold War, ed. Christopher Simpson

This article examines the politics of communication between British and West German protesters against nuclear weapons in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The interpretation suggested here historicises the assumptions of ‘transnational history’ and shows the nationalist and internationalist dimensions of the protest movements' histories to be inextricably connected. Both movements related their own aims to global and international problems. Yet they continued to observe the world from their individual perspectives: national, regional and local forms thus remained important. By illuminating the interaction between political traditions, social developments and international relations in shaping important political movements within two European societies, this article can provide one element of a new connective social history of the cold war.

Download Full-text

The Death of Caucasus Philology: Towards a Discipline Beyond Areal Divides

Iran and the Caucasus ◽

10.1163/1573384x-20130304 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 275-293

Author(s):

Rebecca Gould

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Cold War ◽

American Academy ◽

North American ◽

Institutional Capacity ◽

The Caucasus ◽

The North ◽

The Social ◽

Literary Cultures ◽

The Cold War

This essay investigates the challenges facing Caucasus philology, by which I mean the institutional capacity to conduct deep research into the literary cultures of Azerbaijan Republic, Georgia, Daghestan, and Chechnya. I argue that the philological approach to the literary cultures of the Caucasus has been a casualty of the rise of areas studies in the North American academy during the Cold War, and that Cold War legacies continue to shape Caucasus Studies to this day. I conclude by offering three proposals for opening exchanges between the humanities and the social sciences within Caucasus Studies. More broadly, this essay argues for a rapprochement between the social sciences and philological inquiry vis-à-vis the Caucasus.

Download Full-text

Ways and dynamics of reception of Ludwik Fleck’s work in the social sciences

Social Science Information ◽

10.1177/0539018414566422 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 192-210

Author(s):

Dimitri Ginev

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Intellectual History ◽

Clinical Medicine ◽

Social Geography ◽

Cognitive Sociology ◽

Comparative Sociology ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Thought Styles

The problem of how to access and estimate the proliferation of receptions of Ludwik Fleck’s work in domains as diverse as social geography, history of clinical medicine, and cognitive sociology has long remained vexing. The approach suggested in this paper combines the hermeneutics of effective-historical reception with a version of epistemic reconstruction of intellectual history. Special emphasis is placed upon the forms of political contextualization of Fleck’s comparative sociology of thought styles. The author argues that the heterogeneity of receptions is essentially informed by the specificity of the ‘implicit reader’ Fleck assigned to his work. Interestingly enough, it is a ‘reader’ congruent with the post-metaphysical turns in the social sciences. This claim is defended by analyzing particular trajectories of reception of Fleck’s work.

Download Full-text

Introduction: The Korean War in Britain

The Korean War in Britain ◽

10.7228/manchester/9781526118950.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-29

Author(s):

Grace Huxford

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Social History ◽

Korean War ◽

British History ◽

History Writing ◽

The Social ◽

The Korean War ◽

History Of ◽

The Cold War

This introduction first gives an overview of Korean War historiography alongside a summary of the war itself, before exploring the position of the Korean War and the Cold War in British history-writing. It highlights how selfhood and citizenship have emerged as growing categories of analysis in Cold War studies and argues why it is important to consider them in the context of post-1945 Britain. It closes by exploring the challenges and possibilities of writing the social history of warfare and bringing domestic and military ‘spheres’ together in a meaningful way.

Download Full-text

21. Does Strategic Studies Have a Future?

Strategy in the Contemporary World ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780198708919.003.0022 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Lawrence Freedman

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Cold War ◽

Early Development ◽

Armed Force ◽

The Social ◽

The Cold War ◽

Academic Study ◽

Strategic Studies

This chapter reflects on the question of whether strategic studies has a future as a field of academic study. It first considers the early development of strategic studies and how it became a broad enquiry by the end of the cold war. It then examines how the study of strategy posed a challenge to the social sciences and goes on to discuss the tensions that exist between the academic and policy worlds with respect to strategic studies. It also explores elements of realism that remain very useful in the study of strategy, particularly when it comes to the issue of armed force. The chapter concludes by explaining why strategic studies should be revived as a subject in the universities and how this might be achieved.

Download Full-text

Liberal Pessimism: An Intellectual History of Suspicion in the Cold War

Pessimism in International Relations ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-21780-8_5 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 67-81

Author(s):

Dillon Stone Tatum

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Intellectual History ◽

History Of ◽

The Cold War

Download Full-text