Prof. Dr. Johny Santana de Araújo

Some things made a very big impression on my memory: The specter of a nuclear war, when Operation Able Archer occurred in 1983, when the United States started the Star Wars Project, when the guerrillas in Afghanistan were putting pressure on the Soviet Army.

Dr. Patcharaviral Charoenpacharaporn

The Cold War was the time when having a military government became a norm in the Thai domestic politics.

Dr. Ruud van Dijk

It’s the era in which I grew up. We didn’t consider that it could end, and then we thought it was over, which, it turns out, is incorrect also.

Dr. Dario Fazzi

The Cold War was also the context within which most of my childhood happened. I remember getting curious about it after watching as a young kid the epic, cinematic Balboa-Drago match. Since then, America’s Cold War triumphalism has remained an object of intellectual curiosity and interest.

Dr. Frank Gerits

The Cold War is one of the two ideological struggles that structures 20th century international relations besides decolonisation. The East-West struggle between capitalism and communism was one struggle, the fight between imperialism and anticolonialism was another struggle.

Dr. Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam

The logic of the Cold War dictated that Iran’s progress be curtailed by the political Islam, a tragedy which has engulfed the region, and we continue to live with its disastrous consequences.

Professor Dr. Evanthis Hatzivassiliou

It is a multi-demensional conflict that reveals crucial aspects of the dynamics of international relations and the evolution of the systems of government; a crucial reminder that research can only be based on responsible, systematic and multi-archival research.

Professor Dr. Jan Hoffenaar

It is the period in which I grew up and which shaped me. Only in retrospect – especially by studying history – did I realise how many images and prejudices I had been brought up with.

Professor Dr. Sandrine Kott

We should not forget that the Cold War was also a time of intense political debate in countries where there was a significant Communist Party, and a time when alternatives seemed possible.

Dr. Alessandro Iandolo

A fascinating period to study, whose boundaries historians are constantly pushing.

Professor Emeritus Vojtěch Mastný

Not only did I live through the entire Cold War and its aftermath, but I also earned a living by teaching and writing about it.

Dr. Kona Swapna Nayudu

As a historian of India in the Cold War, the period only also makes sense to me as one of widespread and intense decolonisation, both in terms of actual shifts in ruling power but also in terms of political culture as consumed and experienced globally.

Dr. Fernando Camacho Padilla

In relation to the present, the Cold War was possibly the last moment in which ideologies that responded to different values and utopias confronted each other.

Dr. Simeon Paravantes

The Cold War to me is a constant reminder of the need to ‘get the details right’ in order to avoid catastrophe. Mistakes are unavoidable in life, but utter destruction may be optional.

Dr. Cristina Blanco Sío-López

I personally decided to specialize in European Integration History because it offers examples of many attempts and failures and experiments of how a continent could learn a process to save itself from itself.

Prof. Dr. Ioannis Stefanidis

It means the first, and formative, three decades of my life, highlighted by films like Clint Eastwood’s Firefox, songs like ‘Back to the USSR’ and novels like The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. 

Luke Thrumble

For me, the Cold War is a parable about humanity’s ability to overcome the challenges it faces.