The history of the Cold War has focused overwhelmingly on statecraft and military power, an approach that has naturally placed Moscow and Washington center stage. Meanwhile, regions such as Alaska, the polar landscapes, and the cold areas of the Soviet periphery have received little attention. However, such environments were of no small importance during the Cold War: in addition to their symbolic significance, they also had direct implications for everything from military strategy to natural resource management. Through histories of these extremely cold environments, this volume makes a novel intervention in Cold War historiography, one whose global and transnational approach undermines the simple opposition of East and West.

Christian Kehrt is professor of history of science and technology at the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany. His research interests lie in the cultural history of science, technology and the environment.

List of Illustrations

INTRODUCTIONS

Exploring Ice and Snow in the Cold War
Julia Herzberg, Christian Kehrt, and Franziska Torma

Cryo-history: Ice, Snow, and the Great Acceleration
Sverker Sörlin

PART I: SCIENCE: SITES OF KNOWLEDGE

Chapter 1. Snow and Avalanche Research as Patriotic Duty? The Institutionalization of a Scientific Discipline in Switzerland
Dania Achermann

Chapter 2. An Orgy of Hypothesizing: The Construction of Glaciological Knowledge in Cold War America
Janet Martin-Nielsen

Chapter 3. Camp Century and Project Iceworm: Greenland as a Stage for US Military Service Rivalries
Ingo Heidbrink

Chapter 4. Inuit Responses to Arctic Militarization: Examples from East Greenland
Sophie Elixhauser

PART II: POLITICS OF CONFRONTATION AND COOPERATION

Chapter 5. Creating Open Territorial Rights in Cold and Icy Places: Cold War Rivalries and the Antarctic and Outer Space Treaties
Roger D. Launius

Chapter 6. An Environment Too Extreme? The Case of Bouvetøya
Peder Roberts and Lize-Marié van der Watt

Chapter 7. Managing the White Death in Cold War Soviet Union: Snow Avalanches, Ice Science, and Winter Sports in Kazakhstan, 1960s1980s
Marc Elie

PART III: CULTURES AND NARRATIVES OF ICE AND SNOW

Chapter 8. Laboratory Metaphors in Antarctic History: From Nature to Space
Sebastian Vincent Grevsmühl

Chapter 9. Cold War Creatures: Soviet Science and the Problem of the Abominable Snowman
Carolin F. Roeder and Gregory Afinogenov

Chapter 10. Negotiating Coldness: The Natural Environment and Community Cohesion in Cold War Molotovsk-Severodvinsk
Ekaterina Emeliantseva Koller

Chapter 11. An Exploration of the Self: Reinhold Messners Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1989
Pascal Schillings

Conclusion: Histories of Extreme Environments beyond the Cold War
Julia Herzberg, Christian Kehrt, and Franziska Torma

Index