Ice and Snow in the Cold War

Histories of Extreme Climatic Environments

Julia Herzberg, Christian Kehrt, Franziska Torma (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover

330 Seiten

2025
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
978-1-83695-073-8 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

The history of the Cold War has focused overwhelmingly on statecraft and military power, an approach that has naturally placed Moscow and Washington center stage. Meanwhile, regions such as Alaska, the polar landscapes, and the cold areas of the Soviet periphery have received little attention. However, such environments were of no small importance during the Cold War: in addition to their symbolic significance, they also had direct implications for everything from military strategy to natural resource management. Through histories of these extremely cold environments, this volume makes a novel intervention in Cold War historiography, one whose global and transnational approach undermines the simple opposition of “East” and “West.”

Julia Herzberg is Professor for the Cultural History of Eastern Europe at the University of Leipzig and Deputy Director of the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO).

List of Illustrations

INTRODUCTIONS

Exploring Ice and Snow in the Cold War

Julia Herzberg, Christian Kehrt, and Franziska Torma

Cryo-history: Ice, Snow, and the Great Acceleration

Sverker Sörlin

PART I: SCIENCE: SITES OF KNOWLEDGE

Chapter 1. Snow and Avalanche Research as Patriotic Duty? The Institutionalization of a Scientific Discipline in Switzerland

Dania Achermann

Chapter 2. “An Orgy of Hypothesizing”: The Construction of Glaciological Knowledge in Cold War America

Janet Martin-Nielsen

Chapter 3. “Camp Century” and “Project Iceworm”: Greenland as a Stage for US Military Service Rivalries

Ingo Heidbrink

Chapter 4. Inuit Responses to Arctic Militarization: Examples from East Greenland

Sophie Elixhauser

PART II: POLITICS OF CONFRONTATION AND COOPERATION

Chapter 5. Creating Open Territorial Rights in Cold and Icy Places: Cold War Rivalries and the Antarctic and Outer Space Treaties

Roger D. Launius

Chapter 6. An Environment Too Extreme? The Case of Bouvetøya

Peder Roberts and Lize-Marié van der Watt

Chapter 7. Managing the “White Death” in Cold War Soviet Union: Snow Avalanches, Ice Science, and Winter Sports in Kazakhstan, 1960s–1980s

Marc Elie

PART III: CULTURES AND NARRATIVES OF ICE AND SNOW

Chapter 8. Laboratory Metaphors in Antarctic History: From Nature to Space

Sebastian Vincent Grevsmühl

Chapter 9. Cold War Creatures: Soviet Science and the Problem of the Abominable Snowman

Carolin F. Roeder and Gregory Afinogenov

Chapter 10. Negotiating “Coldness”: The Natural Environment and Community Cohesion in Cold War Molotovsk-Severodvinsk

Ekaterina Emeliantseva Koller

Chapter 11. An Exploration of the Self: Reinhold Messner’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1989

Pascal Schillings

Conclusion: Histories of Extreme Environments beyond the Cold War

Julia Herzberg, Christian Kehrt, and Franziska Torma

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	19.07.2025
Reihe/Serie	Environment in History: International Perspectives
Zusatzinfo	20 Illustrations
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
	Technik ► Umwelttechnik / Biotechnologie
ISBN-10	1-83695-073-X / 183695073X
ISBN-13	978-1-83695-073-8 / 9781836950738
Zustand	Neuware