Tensions between Russia and the United States have escalated recently, and one wonders whether a new Cold War is beginning.  Are the two countries inevitably adversaries?  Is active cooperation ever possible or even desirable? In this survey course of 1,000 years of Russian history we will meet:  Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, Peter the Carpenter and Catherine the Great; Alexander I  (the nemesis of Napoleon), and Nicholas & Alexandra, the tragic last tsar and his empress;  then Lenin and Stalin,  Khrushchev and Gorbachev; and finally a look at Vladimir Putin and the Russia of today.