Topics in World History: The Global Cold War

Student Learning Outcomes, Goals, Objectives:

Students successfully completing this course will be able to:

• Explain how myriad countries from across the world contributed to the start, prolongation, and resolution of the Cold War

• Analyze the consequences of the Cold War, particularly its "hot wars" within the “Third World”

• Summarize the main arguments and methodologies of secondary sources written by historians

• Write original interpretations of the past using historical analysis

Course Grading Information:

Activity/Performance Measure	Percentage/Points
Reflections	60%
Final Paper	40%

Grading Scale:

Percentage	Letter Grade
93–100%	A
90–92%	A-
87–89%	B+
83–86%	B
80–82%	B-
77–79%	C+
73–76%	C
70–72%	C-
67–69%	D+
63–66%	D
60–62%	D-
0–59%	F

Attendance/Participation:

Any student who does not submit a minimum of two reflections by October 20, 2026 will be deemed to have a lack of attendance in the course and automatically withdrawn from the course.

Be sure to submit at least two reflections by October 20, 2026 to avoid this automatic withdrawal.

Course Materials Purchased by the Students:

• Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015)

• Piero Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013)

• Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012)

• Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Monsoon Revolution: Republicans, Sultans, and Empires in Oman, 1965-1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)

• Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)