The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Global Business in Europe
With the end of the Cold War (or so it seemed at the time), the opportunity existed to put together a May Term trip for 2002 that spanned the European continent. This is what we promised.
In his impressive book on the Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Freedman contrasts the conditions surrounding the cold war with those of the current global age, both politically and economically.
Students who select “The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Global Business in Europe” will visit countries and companies to see the results of the globalization on both sides of what was once the Iron Curtain. The trip will take students to London and Paris (both of whom conducted “Global Business” in their colonial empires), then to Berlin, which was literally at the center of the Cold War. Prague and Budapest, both centers of European culture that slipped behind the Iron Curtain for nearly half a century, will be visited. The tour will then go to two major cities in Russia—Moscow and St. Petersburg.
We will be visiting both American and foreign companies in these countries, as well as sampling their historical flavor, using the framework of Freedman’s book.