Many of us have lived through the Cold War, at least through the final years. We all believe we know what it was about. But what was it really? Standard interpretations focus on the Soviet-American rivalry as if the superpowers were the exclusive driving forces of the international system. But what if we restore agency to regional powers in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, and thereby reveal how regional and national developments shaped the course of the global Cold War? Despite their elevated position in 1945, the United States, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom quickly recognized that their political, economic, and military power had surprisingly tight limits. As a series of regional Cold Wars ebbed and flowed, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe underwent major changes which weakened or even severed their links to the global ideological clash, leaving the superpower Cold War as the only major conflict that remained by the 1980s. It not so much surprising that the Cold War ended in November 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but that it took so long to end at all.

This lecture is part of a series of annual Homecoming Lectures sponsored by the Department, designed to showcase historical research for an interested public.