Historiography of the Vietnam War

The review examines “Ngoại giao của chính quyền Sài Gòn (1955-1963)” [Diplomacy of the Saigon Government (1955-1963)] by Tran Nam Tien, a prominent Vietnamese historian, which investigates the formation and evolution of the First Republic of Vietnam’s diplomacy during the presidency of Ngo Dinh Diem amid the Vietnam War. The book comprises three chapters: Chapter 1 lays the historical foundation for national diplomacy, Chapter 2 delves into the establishment of foreign policy, and Chapter 3 focuses on Saigon’s relationships with major international actors. In addition to providing critical insights into the novelty, structure, and content of each chapter, the review highlights significant weaknesses that persist, thereby pointing to ongoing opportunities for further research on RVN diplomacy in the future.

A Destiny of Memories by David Ramati is not a war novel, not in the usual sense. It is a warrior novel exposing the baggage that the warrior carries home with him. Scenes of battle play in his mind’s eye while reality plays out around him, and it is often hard to distinguish between the two. The nightmares that bedevil his sleep are little worse than the friends and family as well as strangers who judge him for the war they sent him to fight. It is a tale that every warrior has lived (if they were “fortunate” enough to live). Sadly, those who fought in Vietnam suffered worse than most. Denied the opportunity to decompress among comrades on the long voyage from battlefield to home, these warriors were transported almost as swiftly as Star Trek crew members and dropped into another battle, an uncivil civil war raging between their peers. No one has told this story better than Ramati. Most of the better known tales such as Platoon, The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now were ideological diatribes. A Destiny of Memories is heartfelt and honest. It’s characters are not political pawns or symbols. They are real and relatable. Strangely, you may find yourself sympathizing with the protagonist and his antagonists simultaneously. You understand his wounds as much as you understand their ignorance.
The writing itself is not just competent, it’s gifted. Ramati is a true storyteller with a clear voice. Yes, there are a few typos here and there, but none so egregious as to serve as a speed bump to the reader. Nothing that would cause me to hesitate giving this book my top rating. (To be fair, it’s lack of serious grammatical errors, invariably found in most books these days, is refreshing.)
On a personal note, like the author, I served in the Vietnam War and can attest to the accuracy of his telling of that tale, both on the battlefield and at home. The reactions Ramati raised in me were almost too visceral but cathartic at the same time, and I was able to complete reading the book in short order. I hope and pray that A Destiny of Memories has longer legs than those other tales and survives as the authentic tale of the Vietnam War while those other stories wither in obscurity. History will be better served if it does.

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My Notes on the movie by Coppola and the novella by Conrad Heart of Darkness The novella follows Charles Marlow's journey up the Congo River, set during the height of European colonialism. Marlow, employed by a European trading company, is tasked with traveling deep into the African jungle to find the enigmatic Mr. Kurtz, an agent of the company who has gone rogue. As Marlow progresses, the journey becomes symbolic-a descent into the "darkness" of the jungle, colonial greed, and human nature. He encounters the horrors of imperial exploitation: suffering natives, brutal treatment, and the corrupting influence of unchecked power. Upon meeting Kurtz, Marlow finds a man consumed by his own godlike status among the natives, reflecting the madness induced by isolation and imperial violence. Kurtz's haunting last words, "The horror! The horror!" encapsulate his realization of humanity's moral void. Marlow returns to Europe disillusioned, burdened by the weight of what he has witnessed, and left grappling with the hypocrisy of "civilized" society.

Pele as "sports figures who don't just define their sports, they change their sports"). 4. MUHAMMAD ALl WITH RICHARD DURHAM, THE GREATEST: MY OWN STORY 415 (1975) ("1 already told them. And I already told you. Didn't you hear me? I said I was The Greatest."). [Vol. 18:1 6. In boxing parlance, a "jab" is a "short sharp punch," used frequently to divert an opponent's attention before another, presumably more potent punch is thrown. THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF WORLD SPORTS 92 (Noam Friedlander ed., Carroll & Graf Publishers 1999)(1975); see THE

Michitake Aso's Rubber and the Making of Vietnam combines multiple trends in the historiography of modern Vietnam. Most obviously, the book is a commodity history. Like other works in this subfield that discuss items such as salt, cod, oil, citrus, spice, cotton, and wood, the author argues that an exploration of rubber production can open important windows into Vietnamese history. As the subtitle states, the book is also an "ecological history." That is to say, Rubber and the Making of Vietnam narrates human agency within parameters set by the natural world. Aso's analysis considers the interplay between humans, rubber trees, mosquitoes, and Plasmodium malariae, as well as the relationship between plantations carved out of the Southeast Asian jungle and industrial consumers in faraway France. Such an approach shows the limits to human decision making by underscoring the constraints that our species cannot control. Finally, the book discusses nation building as Vietnam transitioned from a French colonial possession to an independent state. Central to this last concept is the development of modernity. Aso is in good company with a host of other historians working on a diverse range of topics in early twentieth-century Vietnam. Indeed, his work contributes to the increasingly robust historiography of colonial-era Vietnam. Aso has carefully organized this well-researched book into a clear but complex and nuanced argument. Drawn from his doctoral dissertation, the book contains three chronological sections of one, three, and three chapters, respectively. While Rubber and the Making of Vietnam follows a linear

Military history has long been viewed as the red-headed stepchild of the broader history profession. Though its demise is often predicted, it has proven resilient and persistently vigorous. The result is that, as Robert Citino has written, "Military history today is in the same curious position it has been in for decades: extremely popular with the American public at large, and relatively marginalized within professional academic circles." 1 This continuing popularity stems in part from the fact that the history of the United States is substantially one of war and warfare. Including internal conflicts, such as with Native Americans, undeclared interventions, as in the Caribbean and Central America in the 1920s and 1930s, and the global "war on terror," US forces have seldom not been engaged somewhere in the world. Not surprisingly, then, American military history has generated countless books, 2 including a number of encyclopedias, handbooks, and "companions." 3 These volumes normally feature material ranging from brief synopses of battles and biographies of commanders to longer essays on wars, campaigns, and other topics. Their organization may be purely chronological or topical. They are routinely touted as "essential" or "must-have" for students and scholars. What then, does still another such volume have to offer? What could be missing from the existing literature? A Companion to American Military History [CAMH], part of the Blackwell Companions to American History series, in fact proves to be a worthwhile undertaking. The sixty-seven essays that comprise its two volumes surpass the typical handbook by a beneficial emphasis on the historiography 4 of each topic. As

While he directed the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, former Ambassador Martin Herz gave a series of lectures on the Vietnam War in retrospect.  Public Diplomacy practitioners can benefit from his take on four "paradigmatic" photos from the war: the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk, the assassination a captive Vietcong by a South Vietnamese policeman, a child fleeing from the burning of her village, and the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon by a Viet Cong unit.  Herz concluded: "somehow the American media in Vietnam did not display zeal in the investigation of Communist cruelties and atrocities, which were systematic and a matter of policy, and instead fastened at great length on the occasional violations of the rules of war by ourselves and our allies."

Nowadays, not only has the way fights are carried out changed significantly, but also education and the decision making system have changed dramatically. On the one hand, there are attempts to assist decision-making by using various tools, including computerized ones, in order to limit the errors and the time needed to make them, but on the other hand, the popularization of these instruments creates another type of asymmetry, the enemy having detailed knowledge of these and being able to use them for their own benefit. The paper aims to make a review of what military decision-making act represents and the influences that the commander's education and experience can have in limiting or, on the contrary, increasing the asymmetry of conflicts.

remains a vivid presence in the popular imagination almost 60 years after his assassination, yet we have had to wait until now for the first installment of a comprehensive biography, drawing on the rich holdings of the Kennedy Library in Boston, many of them only recently released. The first efforts at biography, by his aides Arthur Schlesinger Jr and Theodore Sorensen, were published within a few years of his death and cast his life in a roseate hue. But a reaction was inevitable, and 25 years later the revisionist tide crested in Thomas C. Reeves's 1991 A Question of Character, which depicted the thirty-fifth president as a pathological philanderer and monster of narcissism. With this volume, Fredrik Logevall goes beyond the sterile debate between keepers of the flame and debunkers, offering a dispassionate, thoroughly documented account of Kennedy's ascent to national prominence, set against the background of America's emergence as a world power and the tumult of the early Cold War. Logevall begins with a richly textured portrait of the wealthy, close-knit Boston Irish family that nurtured Kennedy-above all, his demanding father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr The elder Kennedy was a self-made and astute businessman who preserved his fortune by liquidating his assets on the eve of the 1929 stock market crash, and an ardent Democrat. Appointed by Franklin Roosevelt as Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, he proved an indefatigable isolationist and indeed an appeaser until the outbreak of the Second World War, and thereafter a standard-bearer for isolationist Democrats who hoped he would challenge FDR's renomination in 1940 and keep the United States out of the conflict.

Pele as "sports figures who don't just define their sports, they change their sports"). 4. MUHAMMAD ALl WITH RICHARD DURHAM, THE GREATEST: MY OWN STORY 415 (1975) ("1 already told them. And I already told you. Didn't you hear me? I said I was The Greatest."). [Vol. 18:1 6. In boxing parlance, a "jab" is a "short sharp punch," used frequently to divert an opponent's attention before another, presumably more potent punch is thrown. THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF WORLD SPORTS 92 (Noam Friedlander ed., Carroll & Graf Publishers 1999)(1975); see THE

In the aftermath of World War II, as longstanding empires collapsed and former colonies struggled for independence, the United States employed new diplomatic tools to counter unprecedented challenges to its interests across the globe. Among the most important new foreign policy strategies was development assistance-the attempt to strengthen alliances by providing technology, nancial aid, and administrators to edgling states in order to disseminate and inculcate American values and practices in local populations. While the US implemented development programs in several nations, nowhere were these policies more signi cant than in Vietnam. In Aid Under Fire, Jessica Elkind examines US nation-building e orts in the edgling South Vietnamese state during the decade preceding the full-scale ground war. Based on American and Vietnamese archival sources as well as on interviews with numerous aid workers, this study vividly demonstrates how civilians from the o cial US aid agency as well as several nongovernmental organizations implemented nearly every component of nonmilitary assistance given to South Vietnam during this period, including public and police administration, agricultural development, education, and public health. However, despite the sincerity of American e orts, most Vietnamese citizens understood US-sponsored programs to be little more than a continuation of previous attempts by foreign powers to dominate their homeland. Elkind convincingly argues that, instead of reexamining their core assumptions or altering their approach as the violence in the region escalated, US policymakers and aid workers only strengthened their commitment to nation building, increasingly modifying their development goals to support counterinsurgency e orts. Aid Under Fire highlights the important role played by nonstate actors in advancing US policies and reveals in stark terms the limits of American power and in uence during the period widely considered to be the apex of US supremacy in the world.

Quinn-Judge arrived in Vietnam in October 1973 as a participant in an American Friends Service Committee with a focus on assisting civilian victims of the war in the contested province of Quang Ngai, located on the coast south of Danang where Quinn-Judge was taken captive for two weeks by National Liberation Front soldiers. In April she witnessed the final North Vietnamese seizure of Saigon. Quinn-Judge remained engaged with Vietnam and Southeast Asia as a contributor to the Far Eastern Economic Review, scholar at Temple University, and author of Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years 1919-1941. [1] In The Third Force in the Vietnam War, Quinn-Judge explores, with emphasis on the post-1954 years, the efforts of South Vietnamese to find a path for Vietnam after the end of the first Indochina War in 1954 outside of the Cold War conflicts involving the major powers of the United States, the Soviet Union, and China.

Vietnam." 2 Bradley Davis, a polyglot historian of the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands, applauds Contested Territory for "overthrow(ing) the hagiographic edifice of Dien Bien Phu and open(ing) paths for future researchers" even though he wishes that it had done more exploring the historical linguistics of the early DRV. 3 Finally, Michitake Aso, a rigorous environmental historian of Vietnam's modern history spanning from the French colonial period to the end of the revolutionary era, appreciates the methodological and theoretical interventions that Contested Territory makes. 4 Place matters and so too do "affect and calculability" in the DRV's state-building and developmental schemes. And what about the author himself and what he brings to the field of Vietnam Studies? Self-described as a "sociologist turned geographer (who) thinks like a historian," Lentz comes from very good Southeast Asianist scholarly stock. At Cornell and Yale, he studied under the greats, which is evident in Lentz's versatility in utilizing and adapting various methodological frameworks from sociology, anthropology, agrarian studies, and history. Originally focused on Indonesia, Lentz found his way to the mainland, much to the delight of scholars of Vietnam. In that vein, he brings the diversity and richness of the broader regional field to bear on this important book about northwest Vietnam and the heavenly muang. If Lentz is representative of the field's new scholars, Vietnam Studies is in very good shape.

Michitake Aso's Rubber and the Making of Vietnam combines multiple trends in the historiography of modern Vietnam. Most obviously, the book is a commodity history. Like other works in this subfield that discuss items such as salt, cod, oil, citrus, spice, cotton, and wood, the author argues that an exploration of rubber production can open important windows into Vietnamese history. As the subtitle states, the book is also an "ecological history." That is to say, Rubber and the Making of Vietnam narrates human agency within parameters set by the natural world. Aso's analysis considers the interplay between humans, rubber trees, mosquitoes, and Plasmodium malariae, as well as the relationship between plantations carved out of the Southeast Asian jungle and industrial consumers in faraway France. Such an approach shows the limits to human decision making by underscoring the constraints that our species cannot control. Finally, the book discusses nation building as Vietnam transitioned from a French colonial possession to an independent state. Central to this last concept is the development of modernity. Aso is in good company with a host of other historians working on a diverse range of topics in early twentieth-century Vietnam. Indeed, his work contributes to the increasingly robust historiography of colonial-era Vietnam. Aso has carefully organized this well-researched book into a clear but complex and nuanced argument. Drawn from his doctoral dissertation, the book contains three chronological sections of one, three, and three chapters, respectively. While Rubber and the Making of Vietnam follows a linear

Review of "Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army" by Richard Gabriel and Paul L. Savage (new York: Hill & Wang, 1978).  The two authors provide "an impassioned analysis of the Army as a force that increasingly failed to perform in combat because of the effects of officer careerism."

This essay discusses the Vietnam War from the perspective of the strategist, and with focus on men-power, which is part of the concept of `order of the battle'. The interest is progressing toward determining best methods for the calculation of estimates of this type to decrease mistake in wars that involve various nations. Upon studying the debate involving the estimates for the Vietnam War, period ranging from 1965 to 1968, the conclusion is that there were gross mistakes from the part of the military, and methods of producing the order of the battle have to be much better examined. Systems of decision, and management deserve revision, so that what has happened during the Vietnam War does not repeat: important is saving human lives, not the prestige of individual institutions or even the amount of negative criticism that is made publicly available about them. National forces must mean also Academia, and there is a chance that Academia can improve those systems by much if governmental authorities acknowledge its existence in all sectors of the national life. The best strategy is still including the dissident group or person, not facing them as an enemy, when it comes to those who are regarded by the general public as part of the national forces.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of forced and undocumented migration by focusing on the heritage produced by the Vietnamese refugee diaspora following the Vietnam War (1955—1975). The analytical sources for this examination are the Vietnamese boat people memorials — the intentions behind their construction and reception. Ultimately, it explores whether memorization around the phenomenon of forced and undocumented migration can contribute to deepening understandings of what heritage is and how it is useful for in society and for whom.

As Americans look back on nearly two decades of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, the experiences and analyses of a junior officer of the U.S. Information Agency during the war in Vietnam, Douglas Pike (1924-2002), deserve to be recovered.  His view of "three basic ways that ideas can be communicated" -- through mass media, informal channels like word or mouth or rumor, and through social organizations -- merit attention.  Pike examined the motivations of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers and cadres, their scant knowledge of Marxism and Communism, insights provided by defectors, the “darker character”
and “psychological dependence” of the Vietnamese, and the relationships between "political struggle" and "armed struggle" during the war.  Pike offered many takes that challenge the standard Stanley Karnow-Ken Burns narrative of the war.

This article studies the collaboration between the Chinese and Vietnamese communists in the socialist transformation of their shared borderlands after the First Indochina War. It both complicates and clarifies the volatile bilateral relationship between the two emerging communist states as they solidified their power in the 1950s. Departing from traditional narratives of Sino-Vietnamese relations which focus on wars and conflicts, this article examines how the timely convergence of Cold War and state expansion transformed the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands from 1954 to 1957. Using both Chinese and Vietnamese archival sources, it contends that the Chinese and Vietnamese communists pursued two interrelated goals in carrying out the political projects at the territorial limits of their countries. First, they wanted to build an inward-looking economy and society at the respective borders by consolidating the national administration of territory. Second, they wanted to impose a contrived Cold War comradeship between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in place of the organic interdependence of people within the borderlands that had existed in the area for centuries. The Sino-Vietnamese border, therefore, was the focus of joint state-building by the two communist governments, which made the cross-border movement of people and goods more visible, manipulable, and, more importantly, taxable.

This paper discusses negative space as a methodology as pertaining to imaginaries of violence in Cambodia. Negative space references the use of images in the recounting of stories of this violence; however, due to the scarcity of photographic records from the era before the fall of the Khmer Rouge, these archives exist on the skins of former soldiers. This paper traces how a set of yantra tattoos provokes expressions of violence from the past and, potentially, in the future. The paper contextualizes these tattoos with histories of violence, an analytic philosophy of images and Buddhist memorialization of death. The tattoos render the human body as 'negative space', allowing for what seems to be secretive to be revealed as representations that capture uncertainties in imaginaries of violence.

Reviews "Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington," by Peter Braestrup (2 vols, Boulder: Westview Press, 1977).  Reporting the Tet offensive was "an extreme case of crisis-journalism.  The result was a 'portrait of defeat' for the allies because 'the special circumstances of Tet impacted to a rare degree on modern American journalism's special susceptibilities and limitations.'"  The media communicated misconceptions: no warning, a victory for Hanoi, the South Vietnamese were unreliable, the "characteristic American response was to destroy city districts and villages with overwhelming, indiscriminate firepower," and fighting at the American embassy, Hue, and Khe Sanh typified the war.  The reasons: an impressionable press corps lacked military experience, was unwilling to admit errors after the fact, "projected" their own opinions and fears, and was ill-fitted for the immensity of their task.

Provides a gripping and multi-dimensional way to understand the nature and enduring significance of the Vietnam conflict based on an exceptional collection of letters an American soldier wrote to his parents and best friend during his tour of duty

This is the current syllabus (2016-17) for my Vietnam War course that I teach at SOAS, University of London. I welcome advice and recommendations for future improvement. Keep in mind that this is pitched to a non-US audience, so it is a different creature than it would be if it focused on how the Vietnam War shaped America (essentially an American History course).

Muhammad Ali will always be known and remembered for all of the glorious victories and triumphs inside the ring and outside of the ring. However, he has yet to be given proper dues for his influence on the Vietnam boycott and overall role in creating public resentment of the war in Vietnam. Not only did Ali brake records and racial boundaries, he established a public voice in the opposition of the American government, in a time of war at that. Muhammad Ali is without a doubt one of several significant leaders of the 20th century.