Second World Urbanity: Infrastructures of Utopia and Really Existing Socialism

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Bocharnikova ◽  
Steven E. Harris

The disappearance of most state socialist regimes in 1989/1991 afforded scholars from a range of disciplines new opportunities to examine the history of socialist cities and their post-socialist transformations. Recent scholarship has focused particularly on such cities in their corresponding national contexts and with the passing of the Cold War, broader commonalities with the urban history of Western cities have come into sharper focus. Absent in most recent work on socialist cities, however, is attention to the broader ideological, political, and cultural world—the socialist Second World—that bound these cities and their countries together. Similarly lacking is a deeper appreciation of the specificities of the socialist city in contrast to its counterparts in the capitalist West and the global South. Read together, the essays in this special collection underscore the value of re-examining how socialist cities were once part of the myriad relations that gave the Second World its ideological and material coherence in pursuit of socialist urbanity.

Author(s):  
Ian Bache ◽  
Simon Bulmer ◽  
Stephen George ◽  
Owen Parker

This chapter charts the long history of plans for European unity, from the end of the Second World War to the Hague Congress, the Cold War, the Schuman Plan, and the Treaty of Paris. It also considers European federalism and the practical reasons why some moves to European unity found favour with the new governments of the post-war period: the threat of communism and the emergence of the Cold War; the so-called German Problem; and the need to ensure adequate supplies of coal for the post-war economic reconstruction. As a solution to these intersecting problems, Jean Monnet, came up with a proposal that paved the way for the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. The chapter examines Monnet’s proposal, national reactions to it, and the negotiations that led to the creation of the first of the European communities.


1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Bethell ◽  
Ian Roxborough

The importance of the years of political and social upheaval immediately following the end of the Second World War and coinciding with the beginnings of the Cold War, that is to say, the period from 1944 or 1945 to 1948 or 1949, for the history of Europe (East and West), the Near and Middle East, Asia (Japan, China, South and East Asia), even Africa (certainly South Africa) in the second half of the twentieth century has long been generally recognised. In recent years historians of the United States, which had not, of course, been a theatre of war and which alone among the major belligerents emerged from the Second World War stronger and more prosperous, have begun to focus attention on the political, social and ideological conflict there in the postwar period – and the long term significance for the United States of the basis on which it was resolved. In contrast, except for Argentina, where Perón's rise to power has always attracted the interest of historians, the immediate postwar years in Latin America, which had been relatively untouched by, and had played a relatively minor role in, the Second World War, remain to a large extent neglected. It is our view that these years constituted a critical conjuncture in the political and social history of Latin America just as they did for much of the rest of the world. In a forthcoming collection of case studies, which we are currently editing, the main features of the immediate postwar period in Latin America, and especially the role played by labour and the Left, will be explored in some detail, country by country.1In this article, somewhat speculative and intentionally polemical, we present the broad outlines of our thesis.


2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-566
Author(s):  
Eileen M. Angelini ◽  
Albert Braz ◽  
Kevin J. Christiano ◽  
Patrick Coleman ◽  
Clifford Egan ◽  
...  

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vojtech Mastny

Efforts to document the full histories of the Nor h Atlantic Treaty Organiza-tion (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact are still hindered by key obstacles. NATO documents from 1965 onward remain closed to researchers, as do many War-saw Pact military records that were carted off to Moscow in 1991. Despite these gaps, newly declassified materials from both East and West have shed light on how the two alliances helped shape the Cold War. This article takes note of some of the more important recent scholarship on NATO and the Warsaw Pact.


2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (02) ◽  
pp. 537-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicia Kornbluh

This essay examines recent scholarship on the legal history of sexuality in the United States. It focuses on Margot Canaday's The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Modern America (2009) and Marc Stein's Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe (2010). It also reviews recent work on the history of marriage, including Sarah Barringer Gordon's The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America (2010) and George Chauncey's Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality (2004), and the history of military law Defending America: Military Culture and the Cold‐War Court Martial (2005), by Elizabeth Lutes Hillman. The essay argues that this scholarship is significant because it offers a different view of sex and power than the one derived from the early writing of Michel Foucault. “Queer legal history” treats the liberalism of the 1960s‐1970s as sexually discriminatory as well as liberatory. It underlines the exclusions that were part of public policy under the federal G.I. Bill and the New Deal welfare state.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huw Dylan

This article examines British deception during the early years of the Cold War, and how a Soviet defector named Grigori Tokaev contributed to British plans and operations. Tokaev provided valuable insights into the Soviet Union, allowing British intelligence to craft more intricate deception operations, political and military. The manner in which he was used, and the extent to which his idiosyncrasies were tolerated, underline the difficulties the British authorities faced as they attempted to apply the lessons of the Second World War deception to the Cold War environment. The case offers new perspectives on both the relatively under-examined subject of British deception operations against the USSR, and the history of one of the most prominent Cold War defectors.


Author(s):  
Simon Bulmer ◽  
Owen Parker ◽  
Ian Bache ◽  
Stephen George ◽  
Charlotte Burns

This chapter charts the long history of plans for European unity, from the end of the Second World War to the Hague Congress, the Cold War, the Schuman Plan, and the Treaty of Paris. It also considers European federalism and the practical reasons why some moves to European unity found favour with the new governments of the post-war period: the threat of communism and the emergence of the Cold War; the so-called German Problem; and the need to ensure adequate supplies of coal for the post-war economic reconstruction. As a solution to these intersecting problems, Jean Monnet, came up with a proposal that paved the way for the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. The chapter examines Monnet’s proposal, national reactions to it, and the negotiations that led to the creation of the first of the European communities.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnd-Michael Nohl

AbstractEstablished in 1939, the Turkish radio of the BBC World Service underwent a series of metamorphoses vis-à-vis the ever-changing expectations in Turkey, in the United Kingdom and within the BBC. Once a propaganda apparatus during the Second World War, the Turkish Service became a device of British cultural diplomacy during the Cold War. Since its foundation, interaction with Turkey and its intellectual circles was lively, and transformed the radio into a well-received media outlet, especially appreciated during times of political censorship. In the post-Cold War world, however, the liberalization and privatization of media in Turkey forced the Turkish Service to adjust its broadcasting by improving access to audiences and shifting the focus of news coverage to international issues. This article explores the history of the Turkish Service vis-à-vis the political and social situations in Turkey, the conditions of the British Broadcasting Corporation and the broader political environment.


Author(s):  
Robert J. McMahon

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction discusses the Cold War, which dominated international life from the end of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall. But how did the dispute begin, and why did it move from its origins in post-war Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? This VSI considers these questions and more, providing a truly international history of the Cold War and examining its enduring legacy. It draws on the most recent scholarship and documents to offer a full analysis of all aspects of the war. These include the Vietnam War and the changing global politics since the 1970s.


Author(s):  
Yulia Gradskova ◽  

This paper is dedicated to the history of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (further WIDF), the influential transnational organization of the period of the Cold War. The scholars who were dealing with the history of this organization have different opinions about its activities and historical role. Indeed, several researches have shown that the federation realized a lot of solidarity work; the federation was important not least with respect to the anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles as well for cooperation between women from inside and outside Europe. But on the other hand, historically this organization was seen as dependent from the Soviet Union or as the organization where Communist ideas and Soviet bloc’s geopolitical interests have played an important role. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the contradictory aspects of the WIDF’s ideology and activities. I use the WIDF’s official publications, first of all, the federation’s journal Women of the Whole World/ Zhenshchiny mira (published from 1951 in English, French, Russian and, later on German, Spanish and Arabic) vis-à-vis the material from the archive in Moscow, belonging to the WIDF’s member organization from the Soviet Union (GARF, Fond of the Committee of the Soviet Women). In this paper I discuss the federation’s use of the achievements of the state socialist countries on the way to women’s emancipation as well as WIDF’s main political concepts and some of their interpretations. Thus, I explore the contradictions with respect to how the concepts as human rights, democracy and women’s rights were used in WIDF’s documents from different periods as well as discuss conflicts connected to their use.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document