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Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars
http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Making-Sense-of-Vietnam-Wars-Mark-Philip-Bradley-Edited-by-Marilyn-B-Young-Edited-by/9780195315141
Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives (Reinterpreting History)
By
Mark Philip Bradley (Edited by), Marilyn B. Young (Edited by)
$30.23
Price includes NZ wide delivery! Ships from USA supplier | Rating: | | | Format: | Paperback, 330 pages | | Published In: | United States, 15 May 2008 |
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 length of the Vietnam wars and has continued to be asked in the three decades since they ended. The essays in this inaugural volume of the National History Centres book series Reinterpreting History examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that mark the contested terrain of Vietnam war scholarship. They range 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. Some draw on recently available Vietnamese-language archival materials. Others mine new primary sources in the United States or from France, Great Britain, the former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe. Collectively, these essays map the interpretative histories of the Vietnam wars: past, present, and future. They also raise questions about larger meanings and the ongoing relevance of the wars for Vietnam in American, Vietnamese, and international histories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. |
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION: MAKING SENSE OF THE VIETNAM WARS- MARK PHILIP BRADLEY AND MARILYN B. YOUNG; PART ONE: AMERICAN INTERVENTION AND THE COLD WAR CONSENSUS; 1. Explaining the Early Decisions: The United States and the French War, 1945-1954- Mark Atwood Lawrence (University of Texas at Austin); 2. No Place to Fight a War: Laos and the Evolution of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam, 1954-1963-Seth Jacobs; 3. Explaining the Vietnam War: Dominant and Contending Paradigms-Gareth Porter (independent scholar); 4. There Aint No Daylight: Lyndon Johnson and the Politics of Escalation- Fredrik Logevall (Cornell University); PART TWO: THE COMING OF WAR IN VIETNAM; 5. Through a Glass Darkly: Reading the History of the Vietnamese Communist Party, 1945-1975-Sophie Quinn-Judge (Temple University); 6. Vision, Power and Agency: The Ascent of Ngo Dinh Diem, 1945-1954- Edward Miller (Dartmouth University); 7. Taking Notice of the Everyday- David Hunt (University of Massachusetts- Boston); 8. Co So Cach Mang and the Social Network of War- Heonik Kwon (University of Edinburgh); PART THREE: WARS END AND ENDLESS WARS; 9. Cold War Contradictions: Toward an International History of the Second Indochina War, 1969-1973- Lien Hang T. Nguyen (University of Kentucky); 10. Help Us Tell the Truth about Vietnam: POW/MIA Politics and the End of the American War- Michael J. Allen (North Carolina State University); 11. Official History, Revisionist History and Wild History- David W.P. Elliott (Pomona College); SUGGESTED READINGS About the Author Mark Philip Bradley is Associate Professor of History, University of Chicago. Marilyn B. Young is Professor of History, New York University
Reviews "Many of the 11 articles in Making Sense present wide-ranging examples of new and less conventional approaches to examining the war, with a particular focus on Vietnamese and international perspectives.... Essential."--K. Blaser, CHOICE
"This is a path-breaking, exceptionally well-researched book by both distinguished scholars who link and reinterpret the entire 1940s to 1970s series of conflicts, and leading scholars who have explored new archival sources for the first time--not least in Vietnam itself--to provide fresh, significant, and revealing insights into key aspects of a many-layered, and ever-haunting, war."--Walter LaFeber, author of America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2006
"Examining the topic from local, national, and international perspectives, this important volume provides a superb introduction to the most recent scholarship on the Vietnam War."--George Herring, author of America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975
"The cutting-edge research in this volume constitutes a crucial addition to the library of anyone interested in the histories of the Vietnam Wars."--Patrick Hagopian, The Journal of American History
"There is little doubt that Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars will influence how future students of the war move forward in their efforts to understand the conflict."--James McAllister, History: Reviews of New Books
"Important and stimulating...succeeds splendidly in its goal of making sense of the various dimensions of the Vietnam War. Indeed, this is an excellent volume: a must read for first-year students and scholars alike." -- The European Legacy
"Living up to its billing, the book offers a view of the Vietnam Wars from a very wide variety of perspectives with essays covering the more-or-less typical high politics, a variety of Vietnamese views, some microhistory of the revolution, and even offerings on international history and myth making."-James M. Carter, Journal of World Hi
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press Inc | | ISBN: | 0195315146 |
| EAN: | 9780195315141 | | Dimensions: | 23.0 x 15.0 x 1.0 centimeters (0.47 kg) |
| Age Range: |
15+ years |
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