ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 seeks to present an overview of the (Cold War) pasts, (post-Cold War) presents and possible futures of thinking about security. The chapter opens by historicising and contextualising the growth of Security Studies as a discipline. The argument here is that ‘Security Studies’, as we came to know it, was a product of the Cold War. The chapter further argues that Cold War Security Studies focused on the security of states, emphasised the military dimension and privileged the status quo. This section of the chapter also presents an overview of Cold War critiques of Security Studies in the attempt to show that alternative ways of thinking about security existed throughout the Cold War era.
