2. Theme 1: Why The Cold War? Instead of peace, the end of World War 2 brought a different kind of war, one that erupted into military conflict only sporadically bit loomed over the earth's people for merely 50 yrs, threatening their very survival. * The Cold War was a presumably mortal antagonism, arising in the wake of the Second World War, between two rigidly hostile blocs, one led by the Soviet Union, the other by the United States.
3. Theme 2: The Vietnam War as a Clash Cultures The Vietnam War proved more politically divisive than any foreign war in the nation’s history. For the Americans in Vietnam it would be difficult to make this leap of perspective, difficult to understand that while they saw themselves as building world order, many Vietnamese saw them merely as the producers of garbage from which they could build houses.
