Course Catalogue

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The end of the Cold War led to the publication of unprecedented quantities of primary source material related to Soviet foreign and security policy in English translation. With a special focus on Eurasia, Africa, and Central America (as opposed to the United States or Western Europe) and with emphasis on the insights to be gained from African, Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese scholarship, this course seeks to examine the history of the Cold War from a decolonising perspective, as well as considering the legacies of the Cold War era for Russian security policies today.

13x 1hr lectures and 7x 1hr seminars over 10 weeks as scheduled in My Campus. This is one of the Honours options in History and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.

Available to all students fulfilling requirements for Honours entry into History, and by arrangement to visiting students or students of other Honours programmes

None

None

Online 7-day exam (50%)

2,500-word essay (35%)

10-minute seminar presentation (15%)

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

This course aims to:

■ Introduce students to the concept of security dilemmas, in a manner that increases their capacity to understand government policy making in general and foreign policy formation in particular.

■ Introduce students to non-Western perspectives on security and international affairs.

■ Show students how a professional historian working in twentieth century history works and how archival revelations change and alter understandings of the field.

■ Encourage students to develop imagination, skills and self-discipline required to master a similarly demanding brief in future, whether in historical research with speciality on the Cold War, or in any sphere of employment where these qualities are valuable.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Analyse and explain the linkages between perceptions of national security, military modernization, and domestic reform in the period and region concerned.

■ Analyse the corresponding dilemmas of money, material resources, space and time in a conceptual framework.

■ Express in verbal and written formats an appreciation of the temporary as opposed to permanent operating factors that have shaped the formulation of Russian/Soviet national security policy.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.