Triumphalism and Its Legacy:  Reassessing US Foreign Policy at the of End of the Cold War, 25 Years On

Mary Sarotte, University of Southern California

The Era of grand ensembles: nation and state during Algeria’s Revolution (1945-1962)

Todd Shepard, John Hopkins

What role did plans to create supranational states play in both French and Algerian national projects during Algeria’s revolution? This talk examines new archival sources from French and Algerian archives to suggest both that such projects were more significant than current scholarship admits and that they offer insight into a transnational “era of grands ensembles” (1945-1962). In this period, as the discussions of scholars, anticolonial activists, state planners, and international organizations such as UNESCO reveal, it was presumed that the age of the nation-state had past. What French and Algerian plans emphasize, however, is that many participants in this discussion were also certain that nations would continue to flourish, if they became part of supranational states.

“Spanish Ships and Allied Strategy in the Atlantic Borderlands of World War II”

Brooke Blower, Boston University

A Mecca for Economists and Planners”: Economists’ Pilgrimages to Nehru’s India

David Engerman, Brandeis University

“A Mecca for Economists and Planners” examines the flows of foreign economists into India during a crucial period in the economic history of independent India: the formulation of the second Five-Year Plan in mid-1950s.  Foreign economists of all political stripes – from Milton Friedman to Joan Robinson to Oskar Lange – came to India with hopes of shaping India’s economic future; “A Mecca for Economists and Planners” explores their impact in India.

The End of the Soviet Empire: 1991, the Ukraine, and Putin

Serhii Plokhii, Harvard University

Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union’s final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guided—and haunted—American foreign policy ever since.