This is a hybrid event. Registration information is below.

Dr. Henry Maar argues for the significance of the often-overlooked Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign to the arms control talks at the end of the Cold War. Launched in 1979 based on the ideas of Randall Forsberg, the Freeze campaign rallied the public for a simple, yet radical proposal: bilaterally halt (or "freeze") the testing, deployment, and production of nuclear weapons between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Freeze campaign soon catapulted into the mainstream of political discussion, garnering bipartisan endorsements from the US Congress. The highest levels of the Reagan White House privately conceded the antinuclear backlash was potentially the most important national security challenge facing the administration. As the Freeze grew in popularity, the administration was left with a choice: reverse its nuclear saber-rattling or continue to face the ire of the public at the ballot box.

About the speaker

Henry Maar is a modern US Historian specializing in the relationship between domestic politics, peace activism, and US foreign relations. He is the author of FREEZE! The Grassroots Movement to Halt the Arms Race and End the Cold War, published by Cornell University Press. He received his Ph.D. in History from UC Santa Barbara in 2015 and was subsequently the Agnese N. Huary post-doctoral fellow at New York University's Center for the Study of the Cold War and the United States. He has previously taught at UC Santa Barbara and Shanghai Jiao Tong University and is currently a lecturer at California State University, Northridge.

Read his recently published article in the Washington Post.

This seminar is part of the spring seminar series with the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS).

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