Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives

by Bradley, Mark Philip; Young, Marilyn B.

• ISBN13: 9780195315141
• ISBN10: 0195315146
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Making sense of the wars for Vietnam has had a long history. The question "why Vietnam?" dominated American and Vietnamese political life for much of the length of the wars and has continued to be asked in the decades since they ended. This volume brings together the work of eleven scholars to examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that have marked the contested terrain of Vietnam War scholarship. Editors Marilyn Young and Mark Bradley's superb group of renowned contributors spans the generations-including those who were active during wartime, along with scholars conducting research in Vietnamese sources and uncovering new sources in the United States, former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern and Western Europe. Ranging in format from top-down reconsiderations of critical decision-making moments in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon, to microhistories of the war that explore its meanings from the bottom up, these essays comprise the most up-to-date collection of scholarship on the controversial historiography of the Vietnam wars. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Mark Philip Bradley is Associate Professor of History, University of Chicago.

Marilyn B. Young is Professor of History, New York University

Table of Contents

Editors and Contributors	p. xi
Introduction: Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars	p. 3
American Intervention and the Cold War Consensus
Explaining the Early Decisions: The United States and the French War, 1945-1954	p. 23
"No Place to Fight a War": Laos and the Evolution of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam, 1954-1963	p. 45
Explaining the Vietnam War: Dominant and Contending Paradigms	p. 67
"There Ain't No Daylight": Lyndon Johnson and the Politics of Escalation	p. 91
The Coming of War in Vietnam
Through a Glass Darkly: Reading the History of the Vietnamese Communist Party, 1945-1975	p. 111
Vision, Power, and Agency: The Ascent of Ngo Dinh Diem, 1945-1954	p. 135
Taking Notice of the Everyday	p. 171
Co So Cach Mang and the Social Network of War	p. 199
War's End and Endless Wars
Cold War Contradictions: Toward an International History of the Second Indochina War, 1969-1973	p. 219
"Help Us Tell the Truth about Vietnam": POW/MIA Politics and the End of the American War	p. 251
Official History, Revisionist History, and Wild History	p. 277
Suggested Readings	p. 305
Index	p. 309
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