Ji Soo Hong (2023)

Ji Soo Hong is a doctoral candidate in History at Brown University. She studies economic and environmental history of the USSR as well as the history of the U.S.-Soviet relations.

Her dissertation traces Soviet postwar economic development focusing on the transnational history of the “synthetic revolution” that was central to the global political economy by the 1970s. By doing so, Ji Soo offers an original account of the Cold War by embedding its history in the context of what scholars call the “synthetica”—the material world increasingly made of synthetics. Her dissertation shows that in the 1950s and 1960s synthetic materials produced from petroleum—petrochemicals—rapidly replaced traditional materials. Despite the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union sought intense exploitation of petroleum and petrochemicals and recognized mutual benefits in cooperating over resource expeditions, factory operations, and logistics. An era defined by political confrontations was also an era of convergent economic goals.

The 2023 National Institute Dissertation Grant supports this dissertation, including research in the National Archives. Prior to coming to Brown, Ji Soo received her B.A. in History and Sociology and M.A. in History from Seoul National University.