A thought about space historiography: recent years have seen a decided move away from the superpowers and their rivalry, this approach has a lot to recommend itself, (1/)

historians are telling some vital stories of how non-superpower nations speculated about/responded to space exploration and utilisation and the role they played in shaping the Space Age. (2/)

BUT: there are times that I worry asserting that space was more than the “familiar Cold War space race” is becoming a sort of catechism that space historians repeat at the start of their texts to demonstrate they aren’t engaging in the bad old approach of yesteryear. (3/)

I think part of this reflects a desire to distance the field from the technologically focussed approach and endless re-treads of Sputnik-to-Apollo. The Cold War might not have been central or the only thing going on but it was still hugely important. (4/)

Conversely, as someone who looks at superpower rivalry/cooperation, I think the challenge I have with my work is incorporating the Cold War in a way that does justice to its importance without overstating it or ignoring other factors and stories. (5/)

I find myself bristling at some recent literature because I worry it downplays the Cold War superpower rivalry, perhaps that's something I need to get over. (6/)

I definitely need to get better at integrating other countries and stories into my work but I also think those exploring the non-superpower side of things could sometimes stand to be a bit less dismissive of the US-Soviet dimension. (7/)

These thoughts have been marinating for a while but came to the surface on reading this fantastic edited collection "Militarising Outer Space"

https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781349958504