Topic Outline

Background                                                                  (See also Cold War page)
– world order at the end of World War II
– colonialism in the Eastern communist bloc and Western capitalist bloc
– emerging role of the United Nations

Cold War to 1948
– origins and early development
– ideological, cultural and political differences between USA and the Soviet Union
– Truman Doctrine
– Berlin Blockade

1948 – 1989
The evolving nature and character of the Cold War in Europe and the Asia-Pacific from 1948 through to détente, including
– the arms race and threat of nuclear war
– and the new Cold War of the 1980s

Case Study: GDR (DDR)
Life in the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik)

1989 – 
Significant developments that followed the end of the Cold War in 1989, including
– the breakup of the Soviet Union,
– the development of European governance and extension of the ‘European Union’, and
– the emergence of China and India as significant Asian powers

The role of significant individuals during the period, for example Josef Stalin, Harry Truman, Mao Zedong, John Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, Jawaharlal Nehru, Richard Nixon, Deng Xiaoping, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev