In this context, the word chance means Privilege.
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The detail that provides the most cultural context from the excerpt about the Cold War is the following: <em>There was also a sense of urgency. The Pentagon was worried that the shattered remains of the Soviet Union might be rebuilt before the United States. </em>That phrase gives the most cultural context reference about the Cold War as there was a constant tension between both powers. There were plenty of different possible scenarios in which either of them would win over the other one, including a possible nuclear war. The sensation of uncertainty was reigning through the Cold War era.
This excerpt belongs to the book called "Visions: how Science will revolutionize the 21st Century" written by American theoretical physicist Michio Kaku and first published in 1997.
Bod was a child who lived among the ghosts, an outsider of the world. He was inbetween the "dead" and the living, defining him as just about "nobody," because he was neither dead or living.
He was also a loner from when he was a toddler, that made him an isolated child from the rest of the world.
