Harish C Mehta

McMaster University, History, Department Member

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My current research interests are to explore the newly-opened archives of Vietnam, and the papers of Presidents Johnson and Nixon in the United States.

My dissertation constructs the diplomatic history of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the closing stages of the Vietnam War. It investigates how North Vietnam created a foreign service to implement a strategy known as “People’s Diplomacy.” This strategy extended responsibility for the conduct of diplomacy beyond North Vietnamese diplomats to Vietnamese students, teachers, businessmen, travelers, and women, which collectively formed the “Diplomatic Front.”

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Books by Harish C Mehta

The Secret Business Diplomacy of Anna Chennault as Nixon's Envoy in South Vietnam, 1967-1974

The International History Review, 2019

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The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs invites Research Articles, Book Reviews, and Op-ed articles

I am writing to request you to write for our new journal, The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs,... more I am writing to request you to write for our new journal, The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs, launched online in October this year. The journal link is: http://www.globaljournalceners.org/

As its editor (and on behalf of our editorial board), I welcome you to submit articles for the quarterly journal on the following broad geographies, themes and topics:
• Asia in general with focus on India, the North East of
India, Southeast Asia, East Asia, China, and
American/Russian policy towards Asia; India’s role in
world affairs.
• Diplomacy, conduct of foreign policy, international relations; soft power (use of film and the arts as a tool of diplomacy);
conflict; geo-strategy; peace studies; informal diplomacy and Track 2; revolution and counterrevolution, and terrorism and counterterrorism, colonialism and decolonization, and so on.
• Contemporary world affairs as well as major events and policies of the 20th Century that are still shaping the world today, and are being revisited in light of new historical material that becomes available from time to time.
Please message me on: hmehta76@yahoo.ca
harish.mehta@utoronto.ca
Best wishes,
Harish Mehta, Editor, The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs

Strongman: The Extraordinary Life of Hun Sen, From Pagoda Boy to Prime Minister of Cambodia

Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia

Warrior Prince: Norodom Ranariddh, Son of King Sihanouk of Cambodia

Cambodia Silenced: The Press Under Six Regimes

Papers by Harish C Mehta

Review of Lien-Hang Nguyen. “Revolutionary Circuits: Toward Internationalizing America in the World.” Diplomatic History 39:3 (2015): 411-422. In H-Diplo, Feb. 2016.

“Restoring Agency to Informal Diplomats in Narratives of the Vietnam War.” History Compass, Vol. 13, No. 6 (June, 2015): 263-274.

“Reconfiguring the Colonial Gaze and Blurring Neo-Colonial Borders: Wilfred Burchett’s Writings during the Vietnam War.” In Globalisation: Australian and Asian Perspectives. Ed. Cynthia vanden Driesen and T. Vijay Kumar. New Delhi, Atlantic, 2014.

“Violent Aboriginals and ‘Benign Whites’: The Encounter in Patrick White’s Voss.” In Patrick White Centenary, The Legacy of a Prodigal Son. Ed. Cynthia vanden Driesen and Bill Ashcroft. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, August 2014.

Review and Roundtable discussion on Ang Chen Guan, Singapore, ASEAN, and the Cambodian Conflict 1978-1991. In H-Diplo, June 2014.

Review of Pierre Asselin, “We Don’t Want a Munich”: Hanoi’s Diplomatic Strategy, 1965–1968.” Diplomatic History 36: 3 (June 2012): 547-581. In H-Diplo, May 2013.

Fighting, Negotiating, Laughing: The Use of Humor in the Vietnam War

North Vietnam’s Informal Diplomacy with Bertrand Russell: Peace Activism and the International War Crimes Tribunal

This article offers a new interpretation of the combined peace activism of the British philosophe... more This article offers a new interpretation of the combined peace activism of the British philosopher-activist Bertrand Russell and the North Vietnamese. Three new perspectives are offered on their global activism, which had a significant—but grossly understated—impact on the U.S. government. First, the article writes ordinary Vietnamese people into the diplomacy of the Vietnam War, which has largely been written from the perspective of powerful world leaders. Second, it shows that the North Vietnamese performed an important, though unacknowledged, role in the creation of the Russell war crimes tribunal that put the United States on trial in 1967. Finally, the article presents evidence of the Russell tribunal’s considerable impact on the U.S. government. It shows that the Lyndon Johnson administration made plans to respond to the tribunal by holding its own “counter seminar.” The administration also launched a propaganda campaign to discredit Russell tribunal staff.

Soviet Biscuit Factories and Chinese Financial Grants: The Economic Diplomacy of North Vietnam, 1967-1970

The author revises existing historical accounts of a critical period during the Vietnam War when ... more The author revises existing historical accounts of a critical period during the Vietnam War when the North Vietnamese urgently needed economic aid from their Communist allies in order to prepare for the ambitious Tet Offensive in January 1968, and to help the DRV economy survive President Lyndon B. Johnson's bombardment of North Vietnam under Operation Rolling Thunder. Using new evidence from the archives in Hanoi, this article shows that China—not the Soviet Union—was the biggest donor of economic aid to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, or North Vietnam) in 1967 and 1968. The new evidence suggests that American intelligence estimates of Communist bloc economic aid to the DRV were incorrect. Misled by inaccurate data, U.S. officials failed to understand the remarkable resilience of the DRV economy to survive U.S. bombardment. An accurate understanding of Communist bloc aid arrangements might have strengthened the arguments of those American officials advocating early peace negotiations with the DRV.

The chilling fields

Cambodia's Press under Six Regimes. In: Media Asia, Jan 1, 1997

" People's diplomacy": The diplomatic front of North Vietnam during the war against the United States, 1965-1972

UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations &amp; Theses. The world&#x27;s most comprehensive collectio... more

Teaching Documents by Harish C Mehta

The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs Invites Research Essays, Book Reviews, and Op-ed articles

Friends, I am writing to request you to think about writing for our forthcoming journal, The Calc... more Friends,
I am writing to request you to think about writing for our forthcoming journal, The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs, to be launched online in October this year. The journal is a publication of the Centre for Eastern and North Eastern Regional Studies, Kolkata. http://ceners-k.com/home.html
As its editor (and on behalf of our editorial board), I welcome you to submit articles for the quarterly journal on the following broad geographies, themes and topics:
• Asia in general with focus on India, the North East of
India, Southeast Asia, East Asia, China, and
American/Russian policy towards Asia; India’s role in
world affairs.
• Diplomacy, conduct of foreign policy, international relations; soft power (use of film and the arts as a tool of diplomacy);
conflict; geo-strategy; peace studies; informal diplomacy and Track 2; revolution and counterrevolution, and terrorism and counterterrorism, colonialism and decolonization, and so on.
• Contemporary world affairs as well as major events and policies of the 20th Century that are still shaping the world today, and are being revisited in light of new historical material that becomes available from time to time.
Please message me on: hmehta76@yahoo.ca
harish.mehta@utoronto.ca
Best wishes,
Harish Mehta, Editor, The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs

The Vietnam War

Harish C Mehta

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Books by Harish C Mehta

Papers by Harish C Mehta

Teaching Documents by Harish C Mehta

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