S. Jager (East Asian Studies)
4 SS, WRi, CD, 4 Hours
Fall Semester FYSP 162-01 TR 9:30-10:45
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the victory of the West brought the Cold War to an abrupt end. This course examines the creation and breakdown of Cold War consensus through a probing look at the cultural, social, and political history of the Cold War in Asia. When and why did the U.S. seek to extend the containment doctrine to Asia? Why was the Korean peninsula chosen as the site of America’s first Cold War confrontation? We will examine the ideological and security dimensions of U.S.-Soviet relations in detail, emphasizing an exploration of the Cold War’s impact on Asian societies, especially on China, Japan, and the two Koreas. Some of the questions we will ask are: In what way has the Cold War influenced the development of these countries politically, economically, and ideologically? What sets of events, both domestic and global, led to the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula? What impact did culture have on the reception of Cold War ideologies in Asia? How did Asian leaders exploit Cold War alliances for their own political/economic interests? And how has the fall of the Soviet Union been memorialized in China, Japan, and the two Koreas, and to what extent do these “shared” memories of the Cold War highlight the differences between the countries?