Despite years of research, historians who study the origin of the Cold War are no closer to understanding what happened or drawing any lessons from it, despite of all the new evidence that emerged not just from well researched Western archives, but also from newly opened archives around the world. In this lecture, Professor Radchenko will discuss the new findings and remaining questions in the current debate regarding the Origin of the Cold War.

Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has written extensively on the Cold War, nuclear history, and on Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies. He has served as a Global Fellow and a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre and as the Zi Jiang Distinguished Professor at East China Normal University (Shanghai). Radchenko’s books include Two Suns in the Heavens: the Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy (Wilson Center Press & Stanford UP, 2009) and Unwanted Visionaries: the Soviet Failure in Asia (Oxford UP, 2014). Radchenko is a native of Sakhalin Island, Russia, was educated in the US, Hong Kong, and the UK where he received his PhD in 2005 (LSE). Before he joined SAIS, Radchenko worked and lived in Mongolia, China, and Wales.