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Cold War History
In this excerpt from "Strange Stability," Benjamin Wilson explores how the concept of "deterrence" went from explaining criminal behavior to becoming a nuclear strategy.
Government-spec’d glory projects produce tech demos. Enduring progress demands a better way forward.
In the Embers series, historian M.G. Sheftall shares the stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s last survivors and reveals why their testimony must endure.
In this excerpt from "Agents of Change," Christina Hillsberg tells the story of Martha “Marti” Peterson, the first female case officer stationed in Soviet Moscow.
Are we enslaved by the finer things in life?
Sixty years ago, the Soviet Union was way ahead of the USA in the space race. Then one critical event changed everything.
Both nations made missteps, but China still has a chance to make up lost ground.
"We are not our grandparents. It’s time to start thinking differently," journalist Annie Jacobsen told Big Think.
Modern autocracies operate "not like a bloc but rather like an agglomeration of companies," says journalist and historian Anne Applebaum.
A rift in thinking about who should control powerful new technologies sent the brothers on diverging paths. For one, the story ended with a mission to bring science to the public.
The National Defense Education Act of 1958 meshed with white anxiety about the desegregation of schools.
Teller and Sagan debated fiercely over nuclear proliferation. But was the conflict as personal as it was intellectual for Teller?
Roger Babson wanted a “partial insulator, reflector, or absorber of gravity” — something, anything, that would stop or dampen it.
A woman’s name would undermine the credibility of the mission. Names of former Nazis, however, were no problem.
As the Manhattan Project headed for completion, German attempts to build a nuclear weapon had already been dismantled.
In many ways, it was worse than Chernobyl.
The biggest nuclear blast in history came courtesy of Tsar Bomba. We could make something at least 100 times more powerful.
At the turn of the millennium, a physicist fooled the global scientific community with the greatest discovery that never existed.
“Who is the aggressor?” That depends on which of these maps you believe.
Here’s what Europe would have looked like if the Confederation of the Danube had been established after WWII.
Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works engineering division has devised many jaw-dropping aircraft. Here are some of the best — and one ship.
In 1934, American Communists translated a Stalinist book about revolution into a children’s game. Curiously, it didn't catch on.
Total annihilation is a permanent threat.
We've been somewhat lucky in the past...
Cold War meets Star Wars in this cut-away of a 1950 “rubber bubble,” the first line of defense against nuclear sneak attack.
Is there victory in defeat?
America’s war in Southeast Asia is fading fast from memory. These maps offer a horrific reminder.
Distinguishing fact from fiction can be tough, especially when it comes to people as controversial as Stalin.