This course will examine the five major themes that have dominated U.S.-Vietnam relations from 1945 to the present: economics, containment, America's use of the Sino-Soviet dispute to further its goals in Southeast Asia, socio-cultural issues, and human rights. At the start of the twenty-first century, with the end of the Cold War and the Sino-Soviet dispute, the economic theme mirrors both cooperation and tension in U.S-Vietnam relations; the socio-cultural theme reflects mainly cooperation; and the human rights theme, mostly tension.