Department of History

"My dissertation traces the post-WWII economic development of the Soviet Union by focusing on the 'synthetic revolution' or the preeminence of petrochemical industries in the national economy. It particularly focuses on the transnational dimension of the Soviet petrochemical industries by tracing the unlikely business partnerships between Soviet and Western industrialists in the petrochemical sector at the height of the Cold War. Exploring those partnerships that belie conventional accounts of the Cold War, it asks how global economic structure such as resource- and energy-intensive industrialization shaped international politics. Answering this question, my project offers a fresh history of the Cold War and Détente from economic and environmental perspectives. And it ultimately situates the Soviet political economy within the age of petroleum in global history."