Syllabus
1)The Grand Alliance and the beginnings of the Cold War; 2)Creation of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and their development until 1953; 3)Forming of the North-Atlantic coalition and its initial problems (1948-1955); 4)The international context of the Korean War and of the wars in Indochina; 5)The crisis of the Soviet Empire (1953-1968); 6)Western economic miracle and the dynamic period of the European integration; 7)The Middle East after World War II: creation of Israel and the Arab-Israeli wars; 8)The decolonisation process in Africa; 9)From the greatest Cold War crises towards the détente period; 10)The new Cold War (1979-1985); 11)The break-up of the Soviet bloc and the end of the Cold War; 12)Basic contours of the post-bipolar world.
Annotation
This course analyses the key problems of world history since World War II: the origins of the Cold War, the forming of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe and its subsequent crises, the détente period, the "second" Cold War, the downfall of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and the most important events in the post-1989 period. The lectures are primarily centred on the East-West relations, but also on their impact on the situation in the Third World.