Simon Miles, assistant professor with the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, discusses his book Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War.
The book explores the root causes of cooperation between two adversarial states, the United States and the Soviet Union, in order to situate the peaceful conclusion of the Cold War in a broader, international context. Between 1980 and 1985, U.S.-Soviet relations improved so rapidly and so profoundly that scholars regularly use the case as an example of longstanding rivals setting aside prior disagreements and beginning to cooperate. Engaging the Evil Empire uses recently declassified archival materials from both sides of the Iron Curtain to show how shifts in the perceived distribution of power catalyzed changes in the strategies which U.S. leaders used to engage the Soviet Union and vice versa.
If you require an accommodation such as live captioning or interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Kyle McCray, mccray.44@osu.edu. Requests made two weeks before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
Speaker
Simon Miles
- Assistant Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
- Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
- Assistant Professor of History
Areas of Expertise
- Soviet Union and Russia
Education
- Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin (2017)
- M.A., London School of Economics (United Kingdom) (2011)
- B.A., University of Toronto (Canada) (2010)
Event Host
The American Foreign and Military Policy research cluster is an initiative of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University. The cluster focuses on the study of US foreign relations, US defense policy, and international relations, diplomacy, and war as they affect US foreign policy and military affairs in contemporary and historical contexts. The cluster examines these elements of power from both American and foreign viewpoints in order to understand both the domestic drivers of policy and the impact of other nations on it. The cluster examines foreign and military affairs holistically, along with all elements of power – diplomatic, economic, military, informational, financial, intelligence, cultural, and legal – that have an impact on them.
