The primary purpose of this article is to analyze how the origin of the Cold War is represented in Turkish history textbooks for general secondary school education for the twelfth grade. The author examined three history textbooks, which are only approved by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) for teaching the course of Contemporary Turkish…

Historical empathy is a critical aspect of history and social science education that has its roots in the inquiry-based education movements of the twentieth century. Although the term "historical empathy" is not specifically mentioned in most history curriculum documents in the United States, dozens of "new social studies"…

Historians of American foreign relations are continuing to expand the ways in which they approach the Cold War. The range of perspectives has evolved thanks to the influence of emerging fields and new emphases in history. The end of the Cold War revealed the many ways in which the conflict was a protracted global war. But it also brought a renewed…

Two classroom simulations--"Superpower Confrontation" and "Multipolar Asian Simulation"--are used to teach and test various aspects of the Borden versus Brodie debate on the Schelling versus Lanchester approach to nuclear conflict modeling and resolution. The author applies a Schelling test to segregate high from low empathic…

On May 1, 2011, a group of U.S. soldiers boarded helicopters at a base in Afghanistan, hoping to find a man named Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network, was responsible for a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including those of September 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.…

On March 28-29, 2009, FPRI's Wachman Center hosted 43 teachers from across the country for a weekend of discussion on teaching the nuclear age. In his opening remarks, Walter A. McDougall observed that although students today are not made to crawl under their desks in air raid drills, that atomic power remains, and it is still necessary to raise a…

Reputations are supposed to matter. Decision makers consistently refer to reputations for resolve, and international relations theories confirm the value of being able to credibly signal intentions during times of crisis. However, empirical support for the effects of reputation has been lacking. Problems of strategic selection have hampered…

To survive into the future, the United States must learn to recognize that its Soviet adversary has much to gain from a mutual and graduated process of de-escalation and conflict reduction. While this country must continue to ensure the survivability of its strategic triad, it is altogether clear that this objective can be satisfied without moving…

From 1939 to 1943 the United States went from a period of total opposition to the Soviets to a gradual acceptance of its new ally. The "New York Times" editorial page shared in this trend: moving cautiously from complete rejection of the Soviets to acceptance of the Russian people, next the Red Army, and finally the Soviet government.…

In many respects the 18 months from June 1941 to December 1942--from the German assault on Soviet Russia to the conclusion of the first year of actual United States participation in World War II--was a brief interval of realism in the United States perception of the Soviet Union. The editorialists of "The New York Times" (probably the…

Eugene Rostow (Yale University) and David Tarr (University of Wisconsin) present their views concerning the wisdom and validity of U.S. security policies, including SALT, and the adequacy of the country's political/military planning. Rostow, representing the views of the Committee on the Present Danger, believes that America is losing the…

In order to discover whether there were any differences in negative attitude intensity between the Soviets and Chinese toward United States involvement in the Vietnam war, the Soviet and Chinese English language media broadcasts concerning United States war participation were subjected to a content analysis. The focus of the study was on two…

For 40 years the primary objectives of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf have been to assure access by the industrialized nations to the region's oil and to prevent those resources from falling under the control of the Soviet Union or any other hostile power. The recent events in Iran, the Iran-Iraq War and its aftermath, the maneuvering of a…

This issue is a collection of recently written Russian literature commemorating the end of World War II. Included are diary excerpts, poems and photos along with suggestions for how this literature should be used in schools to help celebrate the Soviets' victory in what they term "the Great Patriotic War." (JDH)

For almost 40 years the perception of a Soviet threat has influenced much foreign and domestic political behavior in the United States. How to respond to the threat has been a subject of intense debate, but the reality of the threat has been taken for granted. Conviction about the reality of this threat dates back to George Kennan's long telegram…