A Cold War Bleg
Researching the Cold War in recent months—I’m working on a new book—I’ve kept finding that the conflict has already begun to blur and recede from American minds. Even though the cold war ended just before they were born, for instance, I find that my own teenaged children possess only the vaguest recognition of the conflict. They can provide me with serviceable one- or two-sentence summaries of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the First and Second World Wars, but not of the Cold War. The Vietnam War ended badly—they know that. And they recall having come across a paragraph or two in their high school history books about a conflict in Korea. But the cold war itself? The complete arc? Blank stares.
Is there any objective way in which I can demonstrate this, do you suppose? Any illustration involving not anecdotes but data? Polling information, perhaps, showing that more Americans can name the decade in which (say) the Civil War took place than the decades in which the Cold War unfolded? Or a study of high school textbooks, maybe, showing that fewer pages are devoted to the Cold War than to the Second World War? Ricochet readers, I think we can all agree, represent the most literate and best-informed in cyberspace. If any of you can point me in the right direction help, I’d offer you my gratitude—and there’s no truer graditude than that of a writer who’s been helped over a rough spot—and a really sweet mention in the acknowledgements.
- Comment (33)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Peter, I can identify with your children's "blank stares" re the Cold War. I'm not sure how their high school US history classes are structured, but I remember mine was broken into two years: 1. the Founding to the Civil War/Reconstruction. 2. Reconstruction to Present Day.
Inevitably though, we fell behind schedule and had about two-three weeks of school left as we were wrapping up WWII--and in those two to three weeks, we learned about Vietnam as we pursued independent research projects on a topic of our choice. The only thing I knew about the Cold War was that it was not a "Hot War" and that it was between the Soviet Union and the USA. It wasn't until college, when I became interested in conservative thought, that I realized how important the Cold War was, first from a philosophical perspective, then from a historical one. That led me to Chambers' Witness and, eventually, to John Lewis Gaddis' sometimes confusing book (which I wish would have been ordered chronologically rather than topically!).
Needless to say, your book will be a needed and welcome addition!
May '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Peter, I don't have any data right off hand, but the Cold War remains the bedrock of academic histories of US foreign policy. While other themes do get consideration, as a general rule of thumb the further one goes back in time the less literature there is available. That this remains the case, only further begs your question.
This problem has arisen, I believe, because diplomatic historians remain fairly marginalized outside of their own circles. There are multiple reasons for this situation, but the most important are probably: 1) Military histories remain much more popular amongst the general population, and 2) Other academic historians of the U.S. show little interest in diplomatic history. Most university survey courses in U.S. history these days represent the Cold War only briefly, and usually as having just been a tool for drumming up irrational fear and war-mongering that distracted from the more important social and cultural developments of the post-war era. I suspect this has, therefore, filtered downward.
Jul '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Expanding on emily's point, one of the larger issues faced is that this is a "conflict" which lasted for more than half of the 20th century and it was fought largely by proxy.
How can a kid educated in the American system be reasonably expected to describe such a multi-dimensional "conflict" in a couple of sentences ? My own generation, that being the one immediately preceding your kids' generation, were aware of the cold war in the 80s and early 90s and even so they only vaguely recognize the threat that was the Soviet Union. To discuss socialism and communism with my peers is like discussing it with late 20s/early 30s people from 1900 -- they have no awareness of the nature of the conflict of liberal democracy vs statism or the horrors witnessed under the various collectivized system. Good luck in getting them to discuss lenin, trotsky or stalin as well. Heck, just this week i tried discussing the possibility of rational participation in society with a very intelligent good friend from college and was largely told it was an irrelevant subject.
May '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
The Cold War was, for the average American, a feeling. We knew what they were capable of and we knew what we would do in response. You could show them the evolution of it as it was portrayed in popular cultural. On the lighter end there's Silk Stockings, the Astaire-Charisse musical remake of Ninotchka to Red Dawn, the ABC miniseries Amerika and everything in between.
May '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Have you taken the kids to the International Spy Museum here in D.C.? There's a lot of light-weight stuff, but it also offers some Cold War history that they might find interesting.
Jul '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
I guess we're condemned to repeat everything.
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Your Grace -- if Angelina Jolie's movie SALT is any indication, then you might be on to something.
Jun '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
A fear on the "Free World" side of the Cold War was that the Soviets could take over, or dominate, a string of third-world nations (in Latin America or Africa) not by going to war, but by covert means. They could accomplish it by creating and supporting armed communist movements inside those third-world countries, which can end in a coup, and thereby the Soviet sphere of influence expands once again. Of course, our way to obstruct that was often to do the same thing with whatever non-communist movements were available in those countries. So, our motives were good, but we had a hard time winning the propaganda war. It looked like we were doing the same thing as the Communists. But we were doing it on behalf of Freedom, or the closest thing each country had to Freedom. The Soviets were doing it to create another slave state.
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Thanks for all this, folks. (And my daughter's experience in high school exactly paralleled your own, Emily.)
One more question: It occurs to me that somebody may have conducted a poll sometime in recent years, asking how many Americans could identify, say, "Khrushchev" or "Stalin" or "Lenin," contrasting Cold War figures with, say, "Hitler" or
"Churchill." Has anybody in Ricochet Land ever come across such a poll? An if so, can you tell me where to find it?
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Peter, I would imagine that if such a poll had been conducted, they'd know about it at CWIHP. Have you tried them?
Jun '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
I will second Emily's comment that lack of time to teach the Cold War is more responsible than a lack of textbook content. In addition, teachers generally don't get to this unit until near the end of the year when kids are already thinking about summer vacation. Consider also the following:
(1) The Cold War was an extremely long conflict, about 40 years, and fought largely by proxy over battlefields from the Americas, to Africa, the Middle East, and Eurasia. The complexity and duration of the fight deserve an entire semester of study, but teachers don't have the luxury of time.
(2) The proxy aspect of the Cold War meant many Americans didn't have any skin in the game. Vietnam resonates because we have millions of veterans. Korea, though significant as the first military action in support of Truman's containment policy, is already known as the "Forgotten War."
(3) The idea that communism needed to be fought was undermined in the 60's by the "war is never justified" mantra from the left. An easy but false dismissal of tyranny, and the need to fight it.
May '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Peter, I'd say the most important aspect of the Cold War that kids need to understand is that it wasn't merely a conflinct between the Soviets and Americans. We were trying to prevent communism from spreading around the world. Many public educators dismiss that idea as paranoia, but you and I know that communism and similar totalitarian ideologies did indeed spread like wildfire... including to our own doorstep.
They also need to understand that Americans commonly expected the "cold" war to go "hot" at any moment. It was not just two nations having a staring contest. People died, and bomb shelters exist all over the nation.
But I know what you're looking for is figures. I'll see if I can find some.
Jun '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Peter, I can only offer you anecdotal evidence about name recognition based on my classroom experience. Every high school kid knows about Hitler and the Holocaust. The subject is widely covered across many subject areas. About half my kids can identify Churchill as a British leader, but only half of those know his significance. Lennon is more recognizable then Lenin. Stalin was some sort of communist, right? Khrushchev is unknown.
May '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Hmmm, I guess my school was the exception to the rule, since we spent quite a lot of time on the cold war in my AP US history class. Perhaps it was a required topic on the AP exam. Either way, the curriculum broke down when we got to Reagan anyway since my 80s-educated teacher was congenitally unable to give the Gipper any credit. At least it wasn't that Yangs vs. Kohms cartoonishness that seems to be all that pop culture can remember about the conflict.
Jun '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
"than" Damn that Spellczech!
Re: A Cold War Bleg
I am very embarrassed to admit, Claire, that I hadn't actually thought of checking with the Cold War International History Project. But I will do so, pronto. What's Turkish for "thank you kindly, ma'am?"
Re: A Cold War Bleg
"Teşekkür ederim, hanım efendi." To which I would reply, "Bir şey değil, ağabey," interjecting a bit of affectionate informality into the interchange by referring to you with a kinship term indicating that you're my big brother. You will either find this reassuring and caring, because it will touch in you "deep feelings of caring, togetherness, and absolute origins" (Roosens, 1995), or you will be spectacularly offended because we are not on ağabey terms, and I should have known to be more respectful. There are so many subtle ways inadvertently to completely offend people in Turkish!
May '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Peter, I don't know how pending your deadline is, so I'll go ahead and share what little I've found via Google. Unfortunately, a couple of these are only previews, and many are only peripherally related. Be sure to check the dates on each.
A wide variety of questions.
American support for nuclear stockpile rises after Soviet Union collapse.
Americans not sure what to make of new Russia.
Gallup on post-Cold War views of Russia and China.
Russians still distrustful of America.
More than half of Chinese polled believe American and China are heading into a cold war.
Gallup: Americans believe our military dominance is faltering.
Gallup: Over half of Americans now have favorable opinions of Russia.
Only 36% of Americans give Reagan "a lot of credit for the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe."
Only 70% "rate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism as Very Important in terms of world history."
Peter, when I typed "cold war awareness poll" into Google and this thread was at the top, I knew your question doesn't get asked often.
Re: A Cold War Bleg
Aaron Miller: Peter, I'd say the most important aspect of the Cold War that kids need to understand is that it wasn't merely a conflinct between the Soviets and Americans. We were trying to prevent communism from spreading around the world. Many public educators dismiss that idea as paranoia, but you and I know that communism and similar totalitarian ideologies did indeed spread like wildfire... including to our own doorstep.
They also need to understand that Americans commonly expected the "cold" war to go "hot" at any moment. It was not just two nations having a staring contest. People died, and bomb shelters exist all over the nation.
I'd reach back to the Cold War's earlier stages to emphasize that many important and powerful people, if not Communists, really thought that Communism was probably the future of the world, that the West was exhausted, unjustifiable, doomed. As hard a time as we have sometimes putting together the right set of attitudes about Islamic jihad, it just isn't the case that the same critical mass of Westerners, including Americans, think fundamentalist Islam is a real alternative to our way of life, with history on its side.
Jun '10
Re: A Cold War Bleg
What a great topic. For what its worth, I've always been struck by the speed at which the Cold War disappeared from the national conversation. After the Berlin Wall and then the dismantling of the Soviet Union, it seemed that there was a deliberate effort to sweep the topic out of mind - out of sight as quickly as possible. I always wondered if the progressives of the early Clinton era couldn't readily accept the West's (and America's) victory in the Cold War, and thus preferred to de-legitimize it as much as possible. In fact, I'm certain I've read something about that idea somewhere. Polling firms might be inclined to avoid the topic, if the theory holds.