Nick BlackbournNick Blackbourn

Nick completed an MLitt in Modern History at the University of St. Andrews in 2010, and is continuing his studies here with a Ph.D. Before coming to St. Andrews, Nick graduated with a first-class BA in Modern History with Economics from the University of Manchester in 2007. He participated in a study abroad programme at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2006. Nick's undergraduate dissertation looked at the importance of Soviet defense spending estimates to U.S. policymaking in the 1980s. 

He specialises in late-Cold War U.S. history and his thesis title is 'Planning for Victory: The Committee on the Present Danger and Mobilising America for the ‘Second’ Cold War, 1976-1980', supervised by Professor Gerard DeGroot. His project seeks to better understand the deterioration of the policy of detente through an examination of the prominent 'pro-defense' group the Committee on the Present Danger.

The study utilises material from the Hoover Institution, the Library of Congress, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, the James E. Carter Presidential Library, and the Vanderbilt Television Archive.

Interests: U.S. Cold War Culture, U.S. post-Vietnam Cold War Grand Strategy, Conservatism, Neoconservatism, Nuclear Strategy, Arms Control, 'the 1970s', 'the 1980s', History and Social Media.

Website: nickblackbourn.com
Twitter: twitter.com/nickblackbourn