Introduction

Over two decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, dramatic events marking the end of a sometimes terrifying, mainly stultifying, Cold War between two global superpowers. The Soviet Union’s rapid disintegration into Russia and breakaway republics in the west and the east, coupled with the import of shock therapy capitalism, heralded the United States as the victor. Yet the regional hot wars and economic crises that have rocked the United States since the Cold War rendered any declaration of American triumph premature and simplistic. The troubled aftermath of the Cold War demonstrates how important it is to dismantle the binary oppositions that American national agencies honed to demonize the Soviet enemy-evil empire versus bastion of freedom, totalitarianism versus liberal democracy, centralized command economy versus the free market.

Duke Scholars

Author Beth Holmgren Slavic & Eurasian Studies