Description
Book SynopsisA Companion to the Vietnam War contains twenty-four definitive essays on America's longest and most divisive foreign conflict. It represents the best current scholarship on this controversial and influential episode in modern American history. * Highlights issues of nationalism, culture, gender, and race.
Trade Review“Overall, this collection will inform and challenge readers, who will discover stimulating perspectives that deliver on Young and Buzzanco’s claims, comprising a welcome addition to the literature.”
History: Reviews of New Books "The quality of the essays... make it an easy recommendation to those looking at the war."
Journal of American Studies
“This terrific collection of twenty-four original articles is as valuable for the teacher as for the student of the Vietnam War. The contributors, who universally rank among the foremost experts on both the War and Southeast Asian history, utilize diverse frameworks and diverse sources to produce diverse perspectives. Young and Buzzanco warrant praise and thanks for assembling a volume sure to become mandatory reading.” Richard Immerman, Temple University
“These stimulating essays on both the Southeast Asian and American sides of the war contribute valuable new insights into old debates, such as presidential decisions, and leading-edge investigations into new issues, such as ethnicity, gender, and memory.” David L. Anderson, University of Indianapolis
Table of ContentsAbout the Contributors viii
Introduction xi
1 Hanoi’s Long Century 1
Stein Tonnesson
PART 1 THE VIETNAMESE IN CONTEXT 17
2 In Search of Ho Chi Minh 19
William Duiker
3 Belated Asian Allies: The Technical and Military Contributions of Japanese Deserters (1945-50) 37
Christopher E. Goscha
4 The Realities and Consequences of War in a Northern Vietnamese Commune 65
Shaun Malarney
5 The My Tho Grapevine and the Sino-Soviet Split 79
David Hunt
6 “Vietnam” as a Women’s War 93
Karen G. Turner
PART 11 THE AMERICANS IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN CONTEXT 113
7 Before the War: Legacies from the Early Twentieth Century in United States-Vietnam Relations 115
Anne Foster
8 Franklin Roosevelt, Trusteeship, and US Exceptionalism: Reconsidering the American Vision of Postcolonial Vietnam 130
Mark Bradley
9 Dreaming Different Dreams: The United States and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam 146
Robert K. Bridham
10 JFK and the Myth of Withdrawal 162
Edwin E. Moise
11 The Politics of Escalation in Vietnam During the Johnson Years 174
Robert Buzzanco
12 A Casualty of War: The Break in American Relations with Cambodia, 1965 198
Kenton Clymer
13 The Last Casualty? Richard Nixon and the End of the Vietnam War, 1969-75 229
Lloyd Gardner
14 Remembering Nixon’s War 260
Carolyn Eisenberg
15 America’s Secret War in Laos, 1955-75 283
Alfred W McCoy
PART 111 AMERICANS AT HOME AND ABROAD 315
16 Missing in Action in the Twenty-First Century 317
Bruce Franklin
17 African Americans and the Vietnam War 333
James Westheider
18 Mexican Americans and the Viet Nam War 348
George Mariscal
19 “They’ll Forgive You for Anything Except Being Weak”: Gender and US Escalation in Vietnam 1961-65 367
Robert Dean
20 The Antiwar Movement 384
Barbara Tischler
21 The Veterans Antiwar Movement in Fact and Memory 403
John Prados
22 Sanctuary!: A Bridge Between Civilian and GI Protest Against the Vietnam War 416
Michael S. Foley
23 Knowledge at War: American Social Science and Vietnam 434
Michael E. Latham
24 The War on Television: TV News, the Johnson Administration, and Vietnam 450
Chester J Pach, Jr.
Select Bibliography 470
Compiled by Amy E. Blackwell
Index 491
