Technological Innovation, Globalization and the Cold War

This volume focuses on the interconnections between the Cold War, technological innovation and globalization. Although the consequences of globalization have received ample attention in both academia and the public discourse, only limited attention has so far been given to the factors that instigated various waves of this process. This holds particularly true for the period following World War II, during which a struggle between the two global blocs fanned not only technological innovations but also their transfer. This volume is dedicated to examining the links between the Cold War and this phase in the history of globalization, a phase that gradually made the world-despite high levels of international tension-more and more inter-related. More specifically, it anchors a very contemporary phenomenon to its historical context and pinpoints how the varied and multi-layered East-West interactions helped to induce and foster the globalization processes. Emphasizing technology and its cross-bloc flows, as well as several levels of actors, including states, private companies, and individuals, this volume reflects an important shift towards "transnationalism" which has occurred in the historiography in the recent years. This book will be of interest to students of Cold War Studies, science and technology studies, and International Relations.

Wolfgang Mueller is professor of Russian history at the University of Vienna. Peter Svik is Schrödinger fellow at the University of Vienna and Graduate Institute for International Studies in Geneva.

Introduction Part I: Macrostructures and Superpowers 1. Cold War-Technological Innovation-Globalization: A Case Study of the Civil Aviation Sector 2. US and Chinese Discourses on Science in the People's Republic of China, 1971-1978 3. The Second World's "Technopolitics" in the Third World: Cold War and Global Challenges of Modernity in 1960s-1970s 4. Technology Transformation During the Cold War: The Case of Supersonic Gas Jet Targets at the National Accelerator Laboratory Part II: Agency of Smaller States 5. The Transnational Making of China's Industrial Economy in the Early Cold War, 1949-1957 6. Finnish Icebreaker Diplomacy in the Cold War: Ships of Security, Prestige, and Welfare 7. The West German Energy Dilemma and Soviet Natural Gas Part III: From Air Age to Space Age 8. The 1963 "Interflung Affair" and the Cold War: Civil Aviation between Austria and East Germany 9. Anglo-Romanian Cooperation in Civil Aircraft Production: The Case of the Rombac Airliner, 1976-1993 10. The Evolution of US Space Weapons during the Cold War Afterword