Russia and the West: from Peter the Great to Putin

Catalog description

Offered intermittently. The final years of the Cold War appeared to usher in an era of cooperation between Russia, the USA, and major Western European powers. Many in the West seemed optimistic about Russia’s ability to develop democratic and market-based institutions to facilitate Russia’s eventual integration into the so-called family of Western European nation states. Few share such optimism today. Russia’s relations with the United States and the West broadly conceived are among the most tense and confrontational in recent history. Many commentators on Russia even go so far as to characterize the current period as a New Cold War. This course will attempt to place present-day relations between Russia and the West in a broader historical, cultural, and political perspective.