Authors

Discussion

Cultural diplomacy has become an integral part of not only international history but more specifically the history of the Cold War. Bolstered by the era’s rapid advances in communications, the phenomenon allowed for an unprecedented exchange of information, in spite of the Iron Curtain. Non-state actors in Scotland benefited especially from these developments, with an increasingly connected world allowing groups and individuals to promote their own voice beyond official discourse. This paper will investigate the Edinburgh historian John Erickson’s pioneering actions throughout this period. Respected across the East-West divide, the researcher’s work resulted in a unique network of human contacts that transcended political hierarchies. As a result, the threat to détente in the early 1980s increasingly allowed the historian to propose a thoroughly cultural answer to the nuclear threat. The Edinburgh Conversations were a series of annual non-proliferation talks based in the Scottish capital and Moscow. Originally set up by academics, activists and journalists, the exchanges increasingly attracted the interest of British, Soviet and American officials. In light of a similar deterioration in relations over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this paper will offer a reflexive examination of Erickson’s work, as well as the crucial role that history can play in shaping mutual understanding today.