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Couple kissing at the opening of the Berlin Wall

Has Neoliberalism Really Come to an End?

A conversation with historian Gary Gerstle about understanding neoliberalism as a bipartisan worldview and how the political order it ushered in has crumbled. 
Artwork of Hannah Arendt looking through the outline of a map of Ukraine.

Why We Should Read Hannah Arendt Now

"The Origins of Totalitarianism" has much to say about a world of rising authoritarianism.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US secretary of state James Baker in the Kremlin, Moscow, February 9, 1990.

‘A Bridge Too Far’

Even the most ardent advocates of NATO expansion after the implosion of the USSR realized that it had limits—and one of those limits was Ukraine.
Illustration of John von Neumann surrounded by mathematical formulas, by Valentin Pavageau

John von Neumann Thought He Had the Answers

The father of game theory helped develop the atom bomb—and thought he could calculate when to use it.
BP is trying to divest its share of the Russian state-owned company Rosneft.
partner

Western Oil Companies Ditching Russia is a New Twist on a Familiar Pattern

For more than a century, Western oil companies have cycled into and out of Russia.
Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers speaking before the appearance of former president Donald Trump at a Save America Rally on Jan 15th in Florence, Arizona.
partner

The Bond That Explains Why Some on the Christian Right Support Putin’s War

Russia has become an ally in a global movement.
Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson visiting Soviet Jewish émigrés in Israel.

Henry "Scoop" Jackson and the Jewish Cold Warriors

An alliance between Jewish activists and congressional neocons made Soviet Jewry a key issue in superpower relations—and reshaped American Jewish politics.
Drawing of a CIA agent and a Judy sex doll.

Trickster, Traitor, Dummy, Doll

How the CIA tried to trick the Soviets with sex dolls (but ultimately got screwed).
The physicist Klaus Fuchs standing in a group of people.

Why Scientists Become Spies

Access to information only goes so far to explain the curious link between secrets and those who tell them.
President Harry Truman at a podium, giving a speech at NATO's inception in 1949.

Containment Can Work Against China, Too

There are important differences between Xi Jinping’s China and the Soviet Union, but the Cold War still offers clear strategic guidance for the U.S.
Moscow COVID-19 vaccination center
partner

The U.S. and Russia Could Join Forces to Get People Vaccinated. They Did Before.

The forgotten history of Soviet-American vaccine diplomacy.
Marine handing water to evacuees

The End Of Nation-Building

History offers a guide for why the American project in Afghanistan went wrong — and for the future of foreign engagement in the country.
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg after their arrest in New York for espionage in 1950.

The Rosenbergs Were Executed For Spying in 1953. Can Their Sons Reveal The Truth?

The Rosenbergs were executed for being Soviet spies, but their sons have spent decades trying to clear their mother’s name. Are they close to a breakthrough?
John F. Kennedy on a TV screen.

The Book That Stopped an Outbreak of Nuclear War

A new history of the Cuban missile crisis emphasizes how close the world came to destruction—and how severe a threat the weapons still pose.
An astronaut on the Moon standing next to the American flag
partner

How the Cold War Arms Race Fueled a Sprint to the Moon

After the Soviet Union sent the first human safely into orbit, the U.S. government doubled down on its effort to win the race to the moon.
Maxim and Ivy Litvinov

The People’s Ambassadress: The Forgotten Diplomacy of Ivy Litvinov

How Ivy Litvinov, the English-born wife of a Soviet ambassador, seduced America with wit, tea and soft diplomacy.
nuclear explosion

The Day Nuclear War Almost Broke Out

In the nearly sixty years since the Cuban missile crisis, the story of near-catastrophe has only grown more complicated.
A nose smelling.

What Smells Can Teach Us About History

How we perceive the senses changes in different historical, political, and cultural contexts. Sensory historians ask what people smelled, touched and tasted.
partner

Critics of Bernie Sanders’s Trip to the Soviet Union Are Distorting It

Sanders was expressing broadly bipartisan enthusiasm for Soviet reform, not a love of authoritarianism.
Cover of "Cold Warriors" book.

Before Oprah’s Book Club, there was the CIA

‘Cold Warriors’ traces how the U.S. and Soviet government used writers like George Orwell and Boris Pasternak to wage ideological battles during the Cold War.
Damaged Confederate statue on pallet in warehouse.

A Confederate Statue Graveyard Could Help Bury The Old South

A proposal to follow the model several former Soviet States have pioneered, to deal with our own monuments to the Confederacy.
partner

Here Comes the D-Day Myth Again

The Allied invasion of France was an important step in the war against the Nazis. But it was by no means a turning point.
Illustration of a Black man in an overcoat and a winter hat with earflaps.

Homeland Insecurity

Mystery sorrounds the life of alumnus Homer Smith, who spent decades on an international odyssey to find a freedom in a place he could call home.
Children in a classroom in the 1950s.

How the Cold War Defined Scientific Freedom

The idea that liberal democracies shielded science from politics was always flawed.

The Lethal Crescent

The 45 years of peace between the Cold War superpowers were 45 years of killing for much of the rest of the world.
Demonstrators advocate for a nuclear arms freeze.

The Peace Movement Won the INF Treaty. We Must Fight to Preserve It.

In the 1980s, millions of antinuclear activists took to the streets, forcing Western governments to respond to our demands.
Valentina Tereshkova in space, painted

Valentina Tereshkova and the American Imagination

Remembering the Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, and how she challenged American stereotypes.

Why Putin is an Ally for American Evangelicals

American evangelicals once saw the Soviet Union and other communist countries as the world’s greatest threat to their faith.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at his writing desk in Vermont.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Hid Out in a Tiny Vermont Village

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's best work was done in isolation, a long way from Soviet Russia.

New York City, the Perfect Setting for a Fictional Cold War Strike

On Collier’s 1950 cover story, “Hiroshima, USA: Can Anything Be Done About It?”

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