Cold War fever
On Christmas Day 1991, the hammer and sickle flag of the Soviet Union that had flown for 70 years was lowered at the Kremlin for the last time. And after 45 years of proxy wars, political rancor, and military tension, the Cold War was over. Now the Cold War is back, at least on display at Harvard. An exhibit of artifacts from the tense period after World War II, when the communist Soviet Union and the democratic West faced off with nuclear arsenals at the ready, opens today, hosted by the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. “Cold War in the Classroom,” which will run through Dec. 16 at Science Center 251, is a time machine of global maps, scientific instruments, dated textbooks, and audiovisual materials that serve up equal parts patriotic corn and science pedagogy. Such remnants of material culture are often reminders of how military and political tension once so explicitly...