Week 3 – the special relationship

Here are the slides from this week’s lecture.

Nearly 20 years ago, the BBC and CNN produced an epic, 24-part series on the Cold War – episodes 2 and 3 are particularly relevent to the UK in the early decades of the Cold War. You can find them all here. Each episode is 45 minutes long – and they’re really interesting.

We onnly touched on the problem of spying in the Foreign Office, but if you’re interested in learning more about the ‘old boys club’ FO in the 1950s, and about the effect of the spying revelations on civil servants, this half-hour Radio 4 documentary is for you.

There’s a list of books on the Cold War here published a few months ago in the Guardian. They’re mainly fiction/plays – Rayond Briggs’ When The Wind Blows is a graphic novel about a British couple trying to cope with the aftermath of a nuclear war. Number 5 on the list is The Secret State by Peter Hennessy which goes into the chilling details of the UK’s nuclear planning. All cheerful stuff!