I'm in the early stages of thinking about the topic for my undergrad dissertation, and was hoping for a bit of help. I'm looking to write around the Cold War, but need help narrowing it down, as I think that is too broad a subject. The role of Berlin/Germany over the time period seems interesting (Berlin Wall, airlift, 4 power occupation, etc), but I'm unsure of how to word that as a question. I'm also interested in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but again, am unsure of the direction and the nature of the question.
Any help or advice would be really greatly appreciated :)
Hey, I’m not particularly well read about the Cold War itself, but I thought I could maybe offer some generic advise for finding a dissertation topic - a problem I know very well!
My main advise would be to read as widely as possible and see what catches your interest. I don’t know how familiar you are with some of the prominent texts/historians/documents in the field, but I would recommend that you find some survey books which cover the period/theme and are well reviewed. From reading these, see if anything catches you. Does anything not quite make sense, or do you want to find out more about a particular issue, are the narratives convincing?
This is usually how I’ve found topics to study. Once you have found an issue you can read through the footnotes and then read the authors that have been cited for some more specific literature on the subject, and here you should also start finding some of the key primary sources. Going on from there, checking footnotes in all your reading should allow you to develop a fairly solid grasp of the historiography and sources, allowing you to really focus in on a topic.
A final piece of advice I would add is to think carefully about sources and accessibility. I’ve known a lot of undergrads who have thought up brilliant ideas for their dis and have later been disappointed when they can’t access the sources. This can be due to either location (sources being held in an archive which cannot be practically accessed), or often because of language. If interested in writing about Germany/Berlin, consider whether these sources are written in a language you understand, and if not if they are available in translation. The final dissertation is really just a test of your ability to carry out historical research, and in doing that primary sources should be your bread and butter. I would recommend you think about these problems while you consider what to write about, as hopefully you can then avoid some common problems.
Hope this helped, and good luck!
So, the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis happened in 1962. You could theoretically write a dissertation that looks at Berlin during those two crises?
What sort of consultation was there between Kennedy administration and West German govt and West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt in 61? With escalating tensions in 1962, what was the position of West Berlin? Did Kennedy administration speak with Brandt again in October 62?
or how did Berlin crisis in 1961 impact Kennedy's and Khrushchev's perceptions of each other, and how did that impact decision-making during Cuban crisis?