Decolonization of a special type: rethinking Cold War history in Southern Africa
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Date
2011
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
History Department, University of the Western Cape
Abstract
Introduction: This special issue of Kronos: Southern African Histories speaks to this imbalance,
contributing in small measure to a recent turn in Cold War studies that has
sought to incorporate regional perspectives found in area studies to readdress the
parameters and politics of this extended period. Departing from the influential early
work of scholars like John Lewis Gaddis � who helped to define the field of Cold
War history in books such as The United States and the Origins of the Cold War,
1941-1947 (1972) and Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar
American National Security Policy (1982) � scholarship published over the past two
decades has reached beyond an exclusive American-Soviet dynamic and a �great
men� approach to history � whether Stalin or Eisenhower, among other leaders � to
consider the role of social movements and popular trends, the factor of identity
politics such as racial solidarity and, perhaps most significant, a broader political
geography created through the global wave of decolonization after the Second
World War. This change in focus can be attributed to a generational shift, as well
as the end of the Cold War itself, which has resulted in the opening of archives and
research areas previously unavailable. In fact, the expansion of Cold War history
and diplomatic history more generally � at least in the American academy � has
generated calls for renaming the field as �international history� in order to move
Decolonization of a Special Type: Rethinking Cold War History in Southern Africa 7
attention away from nation-state interactions to examine instead patterns of social
and cultural history that transcend the totalizing effect that the �Cold War period� as such has had.
Description
Keywords
Cold War, Southern Africa, Decolonization
Citation
Lee, C.J. (2011). Decolonization of a special type: rethinking Cold War history in Southern Africa. Kronos, 37: 6-11