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Author: Seth S. Jacobs
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 080146451X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
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Book Description
During the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, Laos was positioned to become a major front in the Cold War. Yet American policymakers ultimately chose to resist communism in neighboring South Vietnam instead. Two generations of historians have explained this decision by citing logistical considerations. Laos's landlocked, mountainous terrain, they hold, made the kingdom an unpropitious place to fight, while South Vietnam—possessing a long coastline, navigable rivers, and all-weather roads—better accommodated America's military forces. The Universe Unraveling is a provocative reinterpretation of U.S.-Laos relations in the years leading up to the Vietnam War. Seth Jacobs argues that Laos boasted several advantages over South Vietnam as a battlefield, notably its thousand-mile border with Thailand, whose leader was willing to allow Washington to use his nation as a base from which to attack the communist Pathet Lao.More significant in determining U.S. policy in Southeast Asia than strategic appraisals of the Laotian landscape were cultural perceptions of the Lao people. Jacobs contends that U.S. policy toward Laos under Eisenhower and Kennedy cannot be understood apart from the traits Americans ascribed to their Lao allies. Drawing on diplomatic correspondence and the work of iconic figures like "celebrity saint" Tom Dooley, Jacobs finds that the characteristics American statesmen and the American media attributed to the Lao—laziness, immaturity, and cowardice—differed from the traits assigned the South Vietnamese, making Lao chances of withstanding communist aggression appear dubious. The Universe Unraveling combines diplomatic, cultural, and military history to provide a new perspective on how prejudice can shape policy decisions and even the course of history.
Author: Seth S. Jacobs
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 080146451X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
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Book Description
During the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, Laos was positioned to become a major front in the Cold War. Yet American policymakers ultimately chose to resist communism in neighboring South Vietnam instead. Two generations of historians have explained this decision by citing logistical considerations. Laos's landlocked, mountainous terrain, they hold, made the kingdom an unpropitious place to fight, while South Vietnam—possessing a long coastline, navigable rivers, and all-weather roads—better accommodated America's military forces. The Universe Unraveling is a provocative reinterpretation of U.S.-Laos relations in the years leading up to the Vietnam War. Seth Jacobs argues that Laos boasted several advantages over South Vietnam as a battlefield, notably its thousand-mile border with Thailand, whose leader was willing to allow Washington to use his nation as a base from which to attack the communist Pathet Lao.More significant in determining U.S. policy in Southeast Asia than strategic appraisals of the Laotian landscape were cultural perceptions of the Lao people. Jacobs contends that U.S. policy toward Laos under Eisenhower and Kennedy cannot be understood apart from the traits Americans ascribed to their Lao allies. Drawing on diplomatic correspondence and the work of iconic figures like "celebrity saint" Tom Dooley, Jacobs finds that the characteristics American statesmen and the American media attributed to the Lao—laziness, immaturity, and cowardice—differed from the traits assigned the South Vietnamese, making Lao chances of withstanding communist aggression appear dubious. The Universe Unraveling combines diplomatic, cultural, and military history to provide a new perspective on how prejudice can shape policy decisions and even the course of history.
Author: Michael Joe Allen
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807832618
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
Reveals how wartime loss in the Vietnam War transformed U.S. politics, arguing that the effort to recover lost warriors was as much a means to establish responsibility for their loss as it was a search for answers about their fate.
Author: Pierre Asselin
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861235
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Demonstrating the centrality of diplomacy in the Vietnam War, Pierre Asselin traces the secret negotiations that led up to the Paris Agreement of 1973, which ended America's involvement but failed to bring peace in Vietnam. Because the two sides signed the agreement under duress, he argues, the peace it promised was doomed to unravel. By January of 1973, the continuing military stalemate and mounting difficulties on the domestic front forced both Washington and Hanoi to conclude that signing a vague and largely unworkable peace agreement was the most expedient way to achieve their most pressing objectives. For Washington, those objectives included the release of American prisoners, military withdrawal without formal capitulation, and preservation of American credibility in the Cold War. Hanoi, on the other hand, sought to secure the removal of American forces, protect the socialist revolution in the North, and improve the prospects for reunification with the South. Using newly available archival sources from Vietnam, the United States, and Canada, Asselin reconstructs the secret negotiations, highlighting the creative roles of Hanoi, the National Liberation Front, and Saigon in constructing the final settlement.
Author: Yen Le Espiritu
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520277716
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refuge(es) examines how the Vietnam War has continued to serve as a stage for the shoring up of American imperialist adventure and for the (re)production of American and Vietnamese American identities. Focusing on the politics of war memory and commemoration, this book retheorizes the connections among history, memory, and power and refashions the fields of American studies, Asian American studies, and refugee studies not around the narratives of American exceptionalism, immigration, and transnationalism but around the crucial issues of war, race, and violence—and the history and memories that are forged in the aftermath of war. At the same time, the book moves decisively away from the “damage-centered” approach that pathologizes loss and trauma by detailing how first- and second-generation Vietnamese have created alternative memories and epistemologies that challenge the established public narratives of the Vietnam War and Vietnamese people. Explicitly interdisciplinary, Body Counts moves between the humanities and social sciences, drawing on historical, ethnographic, cultural, and virtual evidence in order to illuminate the places where Vietnamese refugees have managed to conjure up social, public, and collective remembering.
Author: David L. Anderson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813145627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
More than three decades after the final withdrawal of American troops from Southeast Asia, the legacy of the Vietnam War continues to influence political, military, and cultural discourse. Journalists, politicians, scholars, pundits, and others have used the conflict to analyze each of America's subsequent military engagements. Many Americans have observed that Vietnam-era terms such as "cut and run," "quagmire," and "hearts and minds" are ubiquitous once again as comparisons between U.S. involvement in Iraq and in Vietnam seem increasingly appropriate. Because of its persistent significance, the Vietnam War era continues to inspire vibrant historical inquiry. The eminent scholars featured in The War That Never Ends offer fresh and insightful perspectives on the continuing relevance of the Vietnam War, from the homefront to "humping in the boonies," and from the great halls of political authority to the gritty hotbeds of oppositional activism. The contributors assert that the Vietnam War is central to understanding the politics of the Cold War, the social movements of the late twentieth century, the lasting effects of colonialism, the current direction of American foreign policy, and the ongoing economic development in Southeast Asia. The seventeen essays break new ground on questions relating to gender, religion, ideology, strategy, and public opinion, and the book gives equal emphasis to Vietnamese and American perspectives on the grueling conflict. The contributors examine such phenomena as the role of women in revolutionary organizations, the peace movements inspired by Buddhism, and Ho Chi Minh's successful adaptation of Marxism to local cultures. The War That Never Ends explores both the antiwar movement and the experiences of infantrymen on the front lines of battle, as well as the media's controversial coverage of America's involvement in the war. The War That Never Ends sheds new light on the evolving historical meanings of the Vietnam War, its enduring influence, and its potential to influence future political and military decision-making, in times of peace as well as war.
Author: Ronald Bruce Frankum, Jr.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786478152
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Vietnam's Year of the Rat explores the lunar New Year 1960 and the dynamic relationship between two competing groups vying for control in the Republic of Vietnam. One group, led by United States Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow, worked toward directing Vietnam towards an American-style democracy that focused on forcing reforms within the Saigon government. The other group, headed by Republic of Vietnam President Ngo Đinh Diệm, attempted to navigate the demands of Durbrow and the State Department and to confront internal opposition and an emerging external threat while trying to further the goals of the Republic. The result was a series of failed opportunities by both sides to resolve the differences of the two complementary, if conflicting, strategies. Vietnam's Year of the Rat offers an alternative to the now standard historiography for this period of the study in the Vietnam War by providing a Vietnamese viewpoint into the story of that long and tragic war.
Author: Ronald Bruce Frankum, Jr.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476636206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Elbridge Durbrow served as the third United States ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam from 1957 to 1961. His relationships with Vietnamese president Ngo Đinh Diệm and members of the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Saigon helped to shape his tenure in office, which ultimately concluded with his decision to end his support for the Vietnamese leader as well as turn away from the American military representatives who had earned Ngo Đinh Diệm's trust. This triangular relationship was mired in clashes of ego and personality that often interfered with the American decision making process. Durbrow and his embassy staff, rather than work with the Vietnamese leadership, chose to focus on the negative and reported to Washington only those items that reinforced this perspective. They created an atmosphere of distrust and anxiety that neither the Americans nor Vietnamese could overcome in the 1960s and helped to create the conditions for greater United States involvement in Southeast Asia.
Author: Ronald B. Frankum
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810879565
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 650
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Book Description
For Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War altered forever the history, topography, people, economy, and politics of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), Cambodia, and Laos. That the war was controversial is an understatement as is the notion that the war can be understood from any one perspective. One way of understanding the Vietnam War is by marking its time with turning points, both major and minor, that involved events or decisions that helped to influence its course in the years to follow. By examining a few of these turning points, an organizational framework takes shape that makes understanding the war more possible. Historical Dictionary of the War in Vietnam emphasizes the international nature of the war, as well as provide a greater understanding of the long scope of the conflict. The major events associated with the war will serve as the foundation of the book while additional entries will explore the military, diplomatic, political, social, and cultural events that made the war unique. While military subjects will be fully explored, there will be greater attention to other aspects of the war. All of this is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Vietnam War.
Author: Donald L. Gilmore
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company Incorporated
ISBN: 9781402728525
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Using the same format that made Eyewitness D-Day so unforgettable, this new volume offers an equally powerful look at the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial conflicts of the 20th century. It was also one of the most divisive. American involvement in Vietnam nearly tore the nation apart, and the war’s repercussions remain a part of the public consciousness. Written by military historian Donald Gilmore and edited by D.M. Giangreco—author of Eyewitness D-Day—Eyewitness Vietnam traces the history of America’s longest war, illuminating its causes, battles, and aftereffects, its unfolding and unraveling. Accompanied by maps and nearly 250 photographs—many seen here for the first time—each chapter highlights a specific operation and special feature of the fighting, from the Viet Cong’s guerrilla tactics to the MIA issue. And, just as in the bestselling Eyewitness D-Day, numerous interviews with first-hand participants, both American and Vietnamese, present a compelling, intimate, and deeply personal view of this tumultuous time. “I never had the thought that our mission wasn’t worth it. I questioned the rules by which we had to operate…those were dumb. Those cost lives.”—Major Leo Thorsness, Wild Weasel squadron pilot, Medal of Honor recipient
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Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
