From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:
"The Cold War dominated the second half of the twentieth century, but until recently we had only an imperfect sense of what it was all about. Historians wrote about it, of necessity, from within the event they were seeking to describe, so that there was no way to know its outcome. And because only a few Western countries had begun to open their archives, these accounts could only reflect one side of the story. Cold War history, hence, was not normal history: it was both asymmetrical and incomplete.
The end of the Cold War and the subsequent partial opening of Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives have revolutionized the field. Everything we thought we knew is suddenly up for reconsideration, whether because of the new documents available to us, or as a consequence of knowing how it all came out. Even as this happens, though, the memories of those who lived through the Cold War are rapidly fading, and a new generation of students has no memory of it at all.
This seminar will seek to integrate the latest scholarly research on Cold War history and the ways in which that subject is presented in the classroom. We shall use a variety of means: lectures, books, documents, video documentaries, and the resources of the world-wide web. There will also be ample opportunity, we hope, for you to learn from one another, and for us to learn from you. It will be, in short, a week of total immersion in the lengthy, occasionally dangerous, and (almost) always intriguing history of the Cold War, filled with debate and new information."