Despite its unrivalled visibility, sport has been only minimally examined by scholars of the Cold War, whether they study international political systems or elite and popular culture. As the hardest form of soft power and the softest form of hard power, sport crosses the divide between these two main objects of study. Meriting the same rigorous examination already given to subjects from diplomatic relations and military engagement on the one hand to ballet, theater, art and design on the other, sport has the potential to bring both strands of scholarship together in mutually enriching ways. This collaborative and comparative project seeks for the first time to understand Cold War sport in its fullest social, political, cultural and global dimensions. It will not only deliver new knowledge about significant events and processes, but also introduce innovation to the historiography of the period.
