Leader
Haydon CherryAssistant Professor of History,
North Carolina State University
About the Seminar
Histories of the conflict that Americans call “The Vietnam War” have focused overwhelmingly on the American dimensions of the war. They have explored American motivations and American actions based on American sources. But a new generation of scholarship has started to illuminate the Vietnamese dimensions of the war – the roles played by various Vietnamese individuals and groups, using sources that illuminate Vietnamese goals, motives, and actions.
How did the Vietnamese, north and south, view the war? How did they interpret America’s motives and actions? What was at stake for them?
This seminar explores the history of the Vietnam War in the context of twentieth-century Vietnamese history. It focuses on the perspectives and experiences of Vietnamese civilians and soldiers, in the north and south, as much as with generals, politicians, and diplomats. It will provide a fresh point of view from which to teach a key chapter in America's twentieth century history.
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Assigned Readings
- 'Vietnam' A Portrait of its People at War, by Daivd Chanoff & Doan Van Toai.