Greek “Heroes” in the Polish People's Republic and the Geopolitics of the Cold War, 1948–1956*

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Nationality Policy ◽  
Critical History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cold War History ◽  
Nation State Formation

Over the last decade or so there has been renewed interest in the Greek civil war, with a number of important publications shifting the focus of research from the high plane of international relations and Cold War polemics to a critical history of the period, allowing unheard voices and perspectives to be heard and revealed. The volume edited by Mark Mazower, for example, places the experiences of the 1940s in the longue durée of Greek nation-state formation as well as in the wider context of war and post-war violence and resistance—the social character of which is emphasized. Yet the importance of the Greek civil war in the emergence of the Cold War cannot be underestimated as Gerolymatos makes clear. This paper, therefore, aims to demonstrate how the refugees from Greece who arrived in Poland constitute an important part of Cold War history and to show how their experience in Poland can shed light upon both the wider international context and the dynamics of nationality policy in Poland itself. I contend that the arrival of Greek refugees weakened the Polish state's drive to national homogeneity.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Critical Systems Thinking ◽  
Critical Systems ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Future Visions

The book proposes that the Cold War period saw a key debate about the future as singular or plural. Forms of Cold War science depicted the future as a closed sphere defined by delimited probabilities, but were challenged by alternative notions of the future as a potentially open realm with limits set only by human creativity. The Cold War was a struggle for temporality between the two different future visions of the two blocs, each armed with its set of predictive technologies, but these were rivaled, from the 1960s on, by future visions emerging from decolonization and the emergence of a set of alternative world futures. Futures research has reflected and enacted this debate. In so doing, it offers a window to the post-war history of the social sciences and of contemporary political ideologies of liberalism and neoliberalism, Marxism and revisionist Marxism, critical-systems thinking, ecologism, and postcolonialism.

National Internationalists: British and West German Protests against Nuclear Weapons, the Politics of Transnational Communications and the Social History of the Cold War, 1957–1964

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOLGER NEHRING
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social History ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

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.

Introduction: The Korean War in Britain

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.

5. From the End of the War to the Schuman Plan (the late 1940s to the early 1950s)

2014 ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Ian Bache ◽  
Simon Bulmer ◽  
Stephen George ◽  
Owen Parker
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
European Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Schuman Plan ◽  
Second World

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.

Lilley revisited: or science and society in the twentieth century

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
VIDAR ENEBAKK
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
British History ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
Radical Discontinuity ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractIn the 1940s the Marxist mathematician and historian of science Samuel Lilley (1914–87) made a substantial contribution to British history of science both intellectually and institutionally. His role, however, has largely gone unnoticed. Lilley is otherwise portrayed either as exemplifying the immaturity of Marxism, most famously by Rupert Hall in ‘Merton revisited’ (1963), or as a tragic figure marginalized during the Cold War because of his communist commitment. But both themes of exclusion and victimization keep Lilley's legacy hidden. By revisiting Lilley and his long-standing commitment to developing our discipline, this essay challenges the notion of radical discontinuity with respect to Lilley's legacy and argues for a more sustained contribution by Marxist historiography of science. This, in turn, requires a more appreciative understanding of the moderate Marxist model developed by Lilley in his popular, political and professional publications on the history of the social relations of science.

Yes, Minister: Reassessing South Africa's Intervention in the Angolan Civil War, 1975–1976

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Miller
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
South African ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Threat Perception ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Context ◽  
Apartheid Regime ◽  
The Cold War

In 1975–1976, South Africa's apartheid regime took the momentous step of intervening in the Angolan civil war to counter the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and its backers in Havana and Moscow. The failure of this intervention and the subsequent ignominious withdrawal had major repercussions for the evolution of the regime and the history of the Cold War in southern Africa. This article is the first comprehensive study of how and why Pretoria became involved. Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources from South African archives as well as interviews with key protagonists, the article shows that the South African Defence Force and Defence Minister P. W. Botha pushed vigorously and successfully for deeper engagement to cope with security threats perceived through the prism of the emerging doctrine of “total onslaught.” South Africa's intervention in Angola was first and foremost the product of strategic calculations derived from a sense of threat perception expressed and experienced in Cold War terms, but applied and developed in a localized southern African context.

Contemporary Lao Buddhism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrice Ladwig
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Lao Pdr ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Indochina War

Lao Buddhism’s histories are deeply fragmented. Most Lao were deported to Siam in the nineteenth century, and after the demise of the French colonial regime, the country was drawn into the Second Indochina War. After two decades of brutal warfare and massive destructions, the Lao communist movement took power in 1975. This chapter examines the history of Lao Buddhism in the context of these events, and puts its main focus on the entanglement of religion and politics in the postcolonial phase, as the political polarization of the Lao sangha during the Cold War and the impact of the subsequent revolution remain crucial for understanding Buddhism’s position in the current Lao PDR. While under reformed socialism there has been a resurgence of Buddhism in the last two decades, the social and religious transformations resulting from rapid modernization through the capitalist economy and globalization bring new challenges for the Lao sangha.

FROM WORLD WAR TO COLD WAR: THE WARTIME ALLIANCE AND POST-WAR TRANSITIONS, 1941–1947

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID REYNOLDS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This review examines some of the recent British, American, and Russian scholarship on a series of important international transitions that occurred in the years around 1945. One is the shift of global leadership from Great Britain to the United States, in which, it is argued, the decisive moment was the fall of France in 1940. Another transition is the emergence of a wartime alliance between Britain and America, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other, followed by its disintegration into the Cold War. Here the opening of Soviet sources during the 1990s has provided new evidence, though not clear answers. To understand both of these transitions, however, it is necessary to move beyond diplomacy and strategy to look at the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of the Second World War. In particular, recent studies of American and Soviet soldiers during and after the conflict re-open the debate about Cold War ideology from the bottom up.

Wallace Stegner's Arabian Discovery: Imperial Blind Spots in a Continental Vision

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-438
Author(s):  
ROBERT VITALIS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
American Identity ◽  
The West ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Oil Company ◽  
Blind Spots

In 1956 Wallace Stegner wrote a history of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), but it was only published fifteen years later——in Beirut. The book complicates the view of Stegner as a destroyer of American western myths and a forerunner of the social and environmental turn in western history. Stegner shared with those who bought his services some problematic ideas about American identity and history in the context of the Cold War. His forgotten history of oil exploration in Saudi Arabia reveals the blind spots in his ““continental vision,”” an inability or unwillingness to see the moment as part of the long, unbroken past of the U.S. West. Stegner's journey, from chronicler of the despoiling of the West by eastern oil and copper barons to defender of cultural diversity and the collective commons, stopped, as it has for many other Americanists, at the water's edge.

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