Description
Book SynopsisMimi Thi Nguyen examines the self-interested claims of the United States to provide freedom to others, even as it does so by generating violence and displacement through overpowering warfare.
Trade Review"
The Gift of Freedom is a dazzling book. Focusing on the figure of the Vietnamese refugee as a key to comprehending how the rhetoric of U.S. liberalism and freedom became hegemonic during the Cold War and in the contemporary post-9/11 period, Mimi Thi Nguyen offers an original approach to rethinking Cold War politics and U.S. liberal freedom."—
David L. Eng, author of
The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy"The product of strikingly incisive thinking,
The Gift of Freedom is a luminous theoretical contribution to our understanding of the terms and tactics of liberal modernity."—
Kandice Chuh, author of
Imagine Otherwise: On Asian Americanist Critique“
The Gift of Freedom is a bold, rich and sophisticated study providing significant contribution to current literature. . . . It forges new ground in the burgeoning disciplines of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American Studies while advancing the fields of memory studies, affect studies, refugee studies,and cultural studies, offering powerful insights into the far-reaching,inescapable hold that the gift of freedom has over all our precarious lives.” -- LongT.Bui * Journal of Vietnamese Studies *
“Nguyen provides a well-reasoned justification for considering refugees as figures instead of subjects. . . . The book unfolds a compelling, if cynical, story of how thoroughly power functions.” -- Thy Phu * Pacific Affairs *
“In writing about Vietnamese refugees, Nguyen actually helps us to grow links with studies of Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim racialization in and outside of the United States, as well as other assemblages of subjects that might also find themselves the targets in new wars for freedom.” -- Sylvia Shin Huey Chong * Journal of Asian American Studies *
“Nguyen’s book is tremendously convincing. [It] is ambitious but soundly conceived and refreshingly well written. This book should prove instructive to scholars in areas where writerly sensitivity—generous engagement with ambiguous texts and the confidence to ask speculative, even oblique questions—is perhaps not as lauded as it should be.” -- Nicholas Gamso * Women's Studies Quarterly *
“Nguyen offers a refreshing perspective on cultural formations rarely researched in area studies, and
The Gift of Freedom is a major contribution to Vietnamese and Vietnamese diasporic studies. As such, this book is recommended to scholars of cultural studies, critical race studies, immigration and migration studies, transnationalism, Asian American studies, and Asian studies.” -- Laura Ha Reizman * Journal of Asian Studies *
"
The Gift of Freedom extrapolates from its case studies to make an arresting argument that freedom, especially when it is routed through liberal personhood, 'is not simply a ruse for liberal war but its core proposition' (xii)." -- Russ Castronovo * American Literature *
Table of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. The Empire of Freedom 1
1. The Refugee Condition 33
2. Grace, the Gift of the Girl in the Photograph 83
3. Race Wars, Patriot Acts 133
Epilogue. Refugee Returns 179
Notes 191
Bibliography 239
Index 267
