Vietnam War Era

"With admirable global range, this refreshingly insightful volume explores the importance of international protests against the Vietnam War for the radicalising of national politics. By emphasizing the transnational circulation of ideas and people so vital to that history, it challenges older notions of centre and periphery, while decentring the United States from the story." --Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, USA. This book assesses the global emergence and transformation of protest movements during the Vietnam War era. It explores the relationship between activism explicitly focused on the war and other emancipatory and revolutionary struggles, moving beyond existing scholarship to examine the myriad interlinked protest issues and mobilisations around the globe during the Second Indochina War. Bringing together scholars working from a range of geographical, historiographical, and methodological perspectives, the volume offers a new framework for understanding the history of Vietnam War protest. A central inspiration is to shift our focus away from established perspectives that are thoroughly focused on the role of the United States with only peripheral attention paid to other parts of the world. The chapters are organised around the confluence of movements from the three geopolitical regions of the world: the core capitalist countries of the so-called first world, the socialist bloc, and the Global South, chiefly during the 1960s and early 1970s, but harking back to antecedents where appropriate. The opening section of the book lays the groundwork by focusing on international organisations that explicitly sought to bridge and unite solidarity and protest around the world. In a world of persistent military conflict, this book provides timely contributions to the larger questions of what war does to protest movements and what protest movements do to war. Alexander Sedlmaier is Reader in Modern History at Bangor University, Wales, UK, and International Fellow at the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. He works on contemporary German, European, and North American history and is author of Consumption and Violence: Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany (2014).

An insightful look into the immediate and long-term impact of the Vietnam War on a wide range of people and social groups, both Americans in the United States and in Vietnam. This collection of essays by highly respected social historians looks at the Vietnam War era through the eyes of the ordinary citizens caught up in those tumultuous times. Focusing on the period between 1961 and 1975—from the dramatic U.S. military escalation to the fall of Saigon—it offers fresh insight on the impact of the war on individuals on the home front and the battlefront. Each chapter of Vietnam War Era: People and Perspectives examines how a particular group of Americans interacted with the war and its related issues, among them military advisors and soldiers, the silent majority and antiwar activists, women, labor unions, African Americans, students, government leaders, veterans, the media, and religious communities. The authors draw clear connections between the stories of individual lives and the larger social movements that defined the era's human drama.

In 1965, fed up with President Lyndon Johnson's refusal to make serious diplomatic efforts to end the Vietnam War, a group of female American peace activists decided to take matters into their own hands by meeting with Vietnamese women to discuss how to end U.S. intervention. While other attempts at women's international cooperation and transnational feminism have led to cultural imperialism or imposition of American ways on others, Jessica M.Frazier reveals an instance when American women crossed geopolitical boundaries to criticize American Cold War culture, not promote it. The American women Frazier studies not only solicited Vietnamese women's opinions and advice on how to end the war but also viewed them as paragons of a new womanhood by which American women could rework their ideas of gender, revolution, and social justice during an era of reinvigorated feminist agitation. Unlike the many histories of the Vietnam War that end with an explanation of why the memory of the war still divides U.S. society, by focusing on linkages across national boundaries, Frazier illuminates a significant moment in history when women formed effective transnational relationships on genuinely cooperative terms.

Publisher's description: "This book presents new perspectives on the Vietnam War, its global repercussions, and the role of this war in modern history. The volume reveals 'America's War' as an international event that reverberated all over the world: in domestic settings of numerous nation-states, combatants and non-combatants alike, as well as in transnational relations and alliance systems. The volume thereby covers a wide geographical range-from Berkeley and Berlin to Cambodia and Canberra. The essays address political, military, and diplomatic issues no less than cultural and intellectual consequences of 'Vietnam'. The authors also set the Vietnam War in comparison to other major conflicts in world history; they cover over three centuries, and develop general insights into the tragedies and trajectories of military conflicts as phenomena of modern societies in general. For the first time, 'America's War' is thus depicted as a truly global event whose origins and characteristics deserve an interdisciplinary treatment."

Beyond Combat investigates how the Vietnam War both reinforced and challenged the gender roles that were key components of American Cold War ideology. Refocusing attention onto women and gender paints a more complex and accurate picture of the war's far-reaching impact beyond the battlefields. Encounters between Americans and Vietnamese were shaped by a cluster of intertwined images used to make sense of and justify American intervention and use of force in Vietnam. These images included the girl next door, a wholesome reminder of why the United States was committed to defeating Communism, and the treacherous and mysterious 'dragon lady', who served as a metaphor for Vietnamese women and South Vietnam. Heather Stur also examines the ways in which ideas about masculinity shaped the American GI experience in Vietnam and, ultimately, how some American men and women returned from Vietnam to challenge homefront gender norms.

An insightful look into the immediate and long-term impact of the Vietnam War on a wide range of people and social groups, both Americans in the United States and in Vietnam. This collection of essays by highly respected social historians looks at the Vietnam War era through the eyes of the ordinary citizens caught up in those tumultuous times. Focusing on the period between 1961 and 1975—from the dramatic U.S. military escalation to the fall of Saigon—it offers fresh insight on the impact of the war on individuals on the home front and the battlefront. Each chapter of Vietnam War Era: People and Perspectives examines how a particular group of Americans interacted with the war and its related issues, among them military advisors and soldiers, the silent majority and antiwar activists, women, labor unions, African Americans, students, government leaders, veterans, the media, and religious communities. The authors draw clear connections between the stories of individual lives and the larger social movements that defined the era's human drama.

There are many lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War, foremost among them being that war as an instrument of peace is not viable. Solheim provides a full picture of the war era at home and in Southeast Asia by combining historical narrative with biographical profiles and personal reflections. He allows the story to unfold in multiple layers, as seen through the eyes of those who were involved on all sides of the conflict: the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, the American generals and politicians, and the American war correspondents and antiwar protestors. With this book, Solheim explores, and hopes to answer, vital questions about the American war in Vietnam. What is the meaning and significance of the Vietnam War for Americans today? What lessons have Americans learned from our defeat and how should we apply that knowledge in implementing current foreign policy? Who or what is to be blamed for the loss in Vietnam? How can we heal our nation from the Vietnam War syndrome? How do we fit the Vietnam War era into our greater historical narrative?

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.