Invisible enemies : the American war on Vietnam, 1975-2000 / Edwin A. Martini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Martini, Edwin A., 1975-

Series:

Culture, politics, and the Cold War

Culture, politics, and the cold war

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Relations.

United States--Foreign relations--Vietnam.

United States.

International relations.

Vietnam.

Vietnam--Foreign relations--United States.

United States--Foreign relations--1945-1989.

United States--Foreign relations--1989-.

United States--Relations--Vietnam.

Vietnam--Relations--United States.

Vietnam--Foreign public opinion, American.

Public opinion--United States.

Public opinion.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Influence.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975.

Physical Description:

xii, 280 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2007]

Summary:

Beginning where most histories of the Vietnam War end, "Invisible Enemies" examines the relationship between the United States and Vietnam following the American pullout in 1975. Drawing on a broad range of sources, from White House documents and congressional hearings to comic books and feature films, Edwin Martini shows how the United States continued to wage war on Vietnam "by other means" for another twenty-five years. In addition to imposing an extensive program of economic sanctions, the United States opposed Vietnam's membership in the United Nations, supported the Cambodians, including the Khmer Rouge, in their decade-long war with the Vietnamese, and insisted that Vietnam provide a "full accounting" of American MIAs before diplomatic relations could be established. According to Martini, such policies not only worked against some of the stated goals of U.S. foreign policy, they were also in opposition to the corporate economic interests that ultimately played a key role in normalizing relations between the two nations in the late 1990s. Martini reinforces his assessment of American diplomacy with an analysis of the "cultural front" - the movies, myths, memorials, and other phenomena that supported continuing hostility toward Vietnam while silencing opposing views of the war and its legacies. He thus demonstrates that the "American War on Vietnam" was as much a battle for the cultural memory of the war within the United States as it was a lengthy economic, political, and diplomatic campaign to punish a former adversary.

Contents:

A continuation of war by other means : the origins of the American war on Vietnam, 1975-1977

Constructing mutual destruction : the cultural logic of normalization, 1977-1979

Bleeding Vietnam : the United States and the third Indochina war

"I am reality" : redrawing the terms of battle, 1985-1989

Peace is at hand : roadmaps, roadblocks, and one-way streets, 1990-1995

Invisible enemies : searching for Vietnam at the wall(s)

Epilogue: The uneasy peace and the flags that still fly.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [243]-273) and index.

ISBN:

9781558496095

1558496092

9781558496088

1558496084

OCLC:

85692788