Week 3 Blog

Conrad’s three chapters for this week shed light onto a fascinating concept that I personally had never considered. As someone typically only exposed to more mainstream historiographical methodologies, it had never occurred to me that the cultural character of a country and their signifying cultural stereotypes could have originated from shared opinions and policies created as a result of growing global interconnectedness, as Conrad points out. Not only did he explain this concept in thorough detail, but he also exemplified how it can be applied by exploring various case studies related to German labour policies and the origins behind the conception of the stereotyped German work ethic. He dispels the assumption, which lies within the term itself, that this idea originated from nationally bounded causes instead of belonging inherently to a part of a more global process; something that becomes almost obvious when considering how conscious individuals were at the turn of the century of global mobility and general globalization processes that were occurring, as Conrad highlights.

Following discovering this particular way of applying transnational historical approaches, it occurred to me how the cultural aspect of the Cold War could be entirely rethought as well. I researched the most renowned transnational historians of the Cold War and came across Odd Arne Westad who has numerous publications about just this idea. Reading the abstract for his article ‘Rethinking Revolutions: The Cold War in the Third World’, it essentially summarized his exploration into how the Soviet-American conflict in this period increased the potential for revolution in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This has sparked some ideas I have for both my short and long essay. 

It could be helpful to use my short essay to deepen my understanding of theories of revolution during the Cold War era. Eric Hobsbawm would likely be the most obvious and useful option as someone to use as a framework for theorizing the origins of revolutions that occurred globally during the Cold War period and how the Soviet-American conflict drove and impacted these revolutions. This would hopefully provide a strong theoretical foundation for my long essay.

My long essay might look at the impact of these revolutions during and after they occurred and how they influenced ideologies within and across countries that experienced communist and socialist revolutions. Additionally, I could also observe to what extent the collapse of the Soviet Union affected political and social attitudes toward their countries’ revolutions, thus employing more of a transnational historical approach instead of a global historical approach (according to my understanding of their differences).