Understanding Vietnam (A Philip E. Lilienthal book) - Hardcover

Jamieson, Neil L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520080483 ISBN 13: 9780520080485

Publisher: University of California Press, 1993

Synopsis

The American experience in Vietnam divided the US nation and eroded its confidence in both the morality and the effectiveness of its foreign policies, yet American understanding of that tragic episode remains superficial. To understand the war, this study argues, Americans must understand the Vietnamese, their culture and their ways of looking at the world. The author has lived and worked in Vietnam for many years. Against the background of traditional Vietnamese culture, his portrait explores the saga of modern Vietnamese history and Western involvement in the country, from the coming of the French in 1858 through the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Throughout his analysis, Jamieson enables the Vietnamese to speak for themselves through poetry, fiction, essays, newspaper editorials and reports of interviews and personal experiences.

About this title

Review:

"Jamieson ranges over the entire sweep of Vietnamese political culture, using as his window of observation the past century's Vietnamese literary output. There is nothing quite like this in print."--"Indochina Chronology

From the Back Cover:

To better understand ourselves, we must understand the Vietnam War. We must learn more about Vietnamese culture and Vietnamese paradigms in order to untangle the muddled debates about our own. Realizing that we must do this is the first and most important lesson of Vietnam. And it is one we Americans have been exasperatingly slow to learn. We remain far too ready to assume that other people are, or want to be, or should be, like us.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0520080483
• ISBN 13: 9780520080485
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 446