#birkbeckvoices

As part of a workshop hosted by the Reluctant Internationalists research group on Debating the Cold War, Julia Lovell (Birkbeck), Anne Deighton (Oxford), Jussi Hanhimaki (Geneva) and Oscar Sanchez-Sibony (Macau) discuss how global was the Cold War? The panel, chaired by Jessica Reinisch (Birkbeck) address the growing research on the Cold War as a global phenomenon. The majority of narratives and frameworks are still focused on the relationship of the United States and the Soviet Union. This panel discussion therefore aims to take stock of the contributions of global history to Cold War historiography. It asks: what conventional Cold War concepts does a global approach reinforce, which ones does it contest? What are the conceptual and methodological challenges of constructing a global history of the Cold War? How does shifting perspectives away from the US-Soviet binary change our understanding of the Cold War, its stakes and the relationship of the two superpowers and to what extent can we leave the binary