GW Cold War Group

Overview

The George Washington Cold War group (GWCW) works closely with the National Security Archive and the Cold War International History Project to build a community of faculty, scholars, and graduate students dedicated to encouraging a multilingual, multi-disciplinary, multi-national exploration of the Cold War experience and its implications for understanding current policy issues. GWCW strives to support the work of the next generation of Cold War scholars. However, GWCW's promotion of Cold War studies is not confined to the university level. GWCW, along with the Cold War International History Project of the Wilson Center, developed "The Cold War Files: Interpreting History Through Documents" website as a resource for high school teachers and students. The project was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Founded in 2000, GWCW promotes research and scholarship on this critical period in international affairs and strives to elucidate the ways in which Cold War legacies (economic, political, psychological, military, and environmental) affect public policy in many parts of the world. GWCW encourages explorations of the Cold War experience through its seminar series that showcases recent books and ongoing research; the annual Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War, which is organized in conjunction with the London School of Economics and the University of California at Santa Barbara; and the Summer Institute on Conducting Archival Research, which brings together Ph.D. students from across the US and world receive training in conducting archival research.

GWCW meets regularly for work-in-progress presentations by doctoral students and other scholars conducting research on the international history of the cold war. For more information, please contact Hope M. Harrison at hopeharr@gwu.edu.

The George Washington Cold War group faculty organizers

(L-R) Hope M. Harrison, James G. Hershberg, James M. Goldgeier and Gregg Brazinsky

On March 1, 2006, three GW Cold War (GWCW) students attended a conference in Moscow that examined the Cold War. Held at the Gorbachev Foundation, the conference marked Mikhail Gorbachev's 75th birthday.

(L-R) Mikhail Gorbachev, Elizabeth Charles,
James Person and Goshka Gnoinska.