HST6085 Under Attack: The Home Front during the Cold War

15 credits, Semester one
Module leader 2024-25: Miriam Dobson

Module summary

Competition and conflict between two superpowers, the US and the USSR, not only defined the course of international relations across the globe, but also shaped key aspects of domestic life and popular culture. For the USA, USSR, and their near neighbours in Europe, it was a deferred conflict: direct military confrontation gave way to surrogate and covert warfare often far from home. With the long-awaited peace now seemingly secured, the rival political doctrines of the two blocs promised the world could be transformed, be that through the triumph of the 'free world' or of socialism. And yet with the escalation of the arms race and the proliferation of ever more deadly nuclear weapons, terrifying images of global and environmental devastation also shaped visions of the future. Excitement about the possibility of social and political transformation, and the export of these new visions to the rest of the world, co-existed with angst about the humankind’s new capacity for self-destruction.

Yet there is a danger in attributing all historical developments from the 1940s to the 1980s to the Cold War. This module thinks critically about the following questions: what was the Cold War, and how did it impact on the ‘home front’? Are there common patterns which cut across the ideological 'iron curtain' dividing east and west? How did the Cold War impact on societies elsewhere in the world? To some extent the module will focus on the key protagonists in the Cold War, the USSR and the USA, but you will be encouraged to develop your own research interests and to reflect on the issues under examination with regard to other countries.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, you will be able to:

Explain some of the ways that the Cold War impacted on domestic society and popular culture
Demonstrate a critical awareness of the literature on the Cold War and its impact at home
Reflect critically on whether concepts such as the Cold War and home front are useful for characterising the history of a specific society or culture
Demonstrate confidence in expressing ideas verbally
Express ideas and evidence through clear and perceptive prose

Assessment methods

Assessment type - % of final mark

3,000 word essay - 100%

You will complete a 3,000 word essay on a topic related to one of the module's key themes. You will define your own essay topic in discussion with your tutor.

Additional learning and teaching information 2024-25

Teaching and indicative seminar plan:

Indicative seminar plan:

‘The Nuclear Family’, will use the prism of family life to introduce some of the key questions under examination in the module. Published some thirty-five years ago, Elaine Tyler May’s seminal Homeward Bound established a connection between Cold War politics and American family life in the 1940s and 1950s, linking the foreign policy of containment overseas with domestic ‘containment’. This seminar will explore the resurgence of normative family values across different societies in these two decades, considering the way different national experiences of the interwar period and WWII itself also shaped expectations of family life, as well as the impact of the new global tensions and the atomic threat post-45.
Seminar two will focus on conceptions of ‘the other’, exploring how the cold-war opponent was represented in film, fiction, the media and other cultural forms. We will ask how far a coherent and convincing image of the enemy was created (and by whom); and the extent to which it was effective in unifying societies in this ‘imaginary war’.
Seminar three is about ‘the future’ and emotional responses to the Cold War. Were cold-war cultures fundamentally optimistic or fearful? Did the political ideologies of democracy and socialism serve as sources of inspiration? Did scientific and technological advances generate excitement about the new world under construction? Or, with the shadow of the bomb, were these societies burdened with fear and trepidation about the apocalyptic desolation ahead?
Seminar 4 explores the link between war, sexuality, and gender. In the set reading, Marko Dumančić notes that ‘war and gender are mutually constitutive’. What does he mean by this, and do you find it to be true in the case of the Cold War? How widespread were Cold War-era anxieties about a deficient masculinity (and why)? To what extent should we link moral panics about homosexuality to the Cold War? We shall also consider resistance and protest. How far were established sexual and gender norms transgressed in practice?
Seminar 5 explores the way children were used as ‘potent symbols that embodied national aspirations and fears alike’ (Sarah Fieldston). We will consider how children were presented as innocent, non-sexual, and seemingly apolitical objects in ways that were in fact highly politicised. What values were embodied in cold-war images of childhood, and how far did these change as the Cold War progressed? What were the challenges involved in using children in cold-war crusades? And were the political goals always realized?

Selected reading:

Benjamin Ziemann and Matthew Grant (eds), Understanding the imaginary war : culture, thought and nuclear conflict, 1945-90 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016)
Rana Mitter and Patrick Major (eds), Across the blocs: Cold War cultural and social history (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2004)
E. Conze, Martin Klimke, Jeremy Varon (eds), Nuclear threats, nuclear fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s (Publications of the German Historical Institute,. 2017)
Heonik Kwon, The Other Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010)
Kate Brown, Plutopia : nuclear families, atomic cities, and the great Soviet and American plutonium disasters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)
Philip E Muehlenbeck, Religion and the Cold War: a global perspective (Nashville, Tenn. : Vanderbilt University Press, 2012)

Additional learning and teaching information 2023-24

Teaching and indicative seminar plan:

Indicative seminar plan:

‘The Nuclear Family’, will use the prism of family life to introduce some of the key questions under examination in the module. Published some thirty-five years ago, Elaine Tyler May’s seminal Homeward Bound established a connection between Cold War politics and American family life in the 1940s and 1950s, linking the foreign policy of containment overseas with domestic ‘containment’. This seminar will explore the resurgence of normative family values across different societies in these two decades, considering the way different national experiences of the interwar period and WWII itself also shaped expectations of family life, as well as the impact of the new global tensions and the atomic threat post-45.
Seminar two will focus on conceptions of ‘the other’, exploring how the cold-war opponent was represented in film, fiction, the media and other cultural forms. We will ask how far a coherent and convincing image of the enemy was created (and by whom); and the extent to which it was effective in unifying societies in this ‘imaginary war’.
Seminar three is about ‘the future’ and emotional responses to the Cold War. Were cold-war cultures fundamentally optimistic or fearful? Did the political ideologies of democracy and socialism serve as sources of inspiration? Did scientific and technological advances generate excitement about the new world under construction? Or, with the shadow of the bomb, were these societies burdened with fear and trepidation about the apocalyptic desolation ahead?
Seminars four and five will be narrower in focus and as a group you will collectively decide on two topics from the following list: The Religious Cold War; The Battle for Human Rights; The Politics of Childhood; Peace and Protest Movements; Civil Defence.

Selected reading:

Benjamin Ziemann and Matthew Grant (eds), Understanding the imaginary war : culture, thought and nuclear conflict, 1945-90 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016)
Rana Mitter and Patrick Major (eds), Across the blocs: Cold War cultural and social history (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2004)
E. Conze, Martin Klimke, Jeremy Varon (eds), Nuclear threats, nuclear fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s (Publications of the German Historical Institute,. 2017)
Heonik Kwon, The Other Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010)
Kate Brown, Plutopia : nuclear families, atomic cities, and the great Soviet and American plutonium disasters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)
Philip E Muehlenbeck, Religion and the Cold War: a global perspective (Nashville, Tenn. : Vanderbilt University Press, 2012)

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