Inventing Vietnam : the United States and State Building, 1954-1968 / James M. Carter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carter, James M., 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Vietnam War, 1961-1975--United States.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975.

United States--Foreign relations--Vietnam.

United States.

International relations.

Vietnam.

Vietnam--Foreign relations--United States.

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

Vietnam--Politics and government--1945-1975.

Politics and government.

Physical Description:

viii, 268 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Summary:

This book considers the Vietnam War in light of U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam, concluding that the war was a direct result of failed state-building efforts. This U.S. nation-building project began in the mid-1950s with the ambitious goal of creating a new independent, democratic, modern state below the seventeenth parallel. No one involved imagined this effort would lead to a major and devastating war in less than a decade. Carter analyzes how the United States ended up fighting a large-scale war that wrecked the countryside, generated a flood of refugees, and brought about catastrophic economic distortions, results that actually further undermined the larger U.S. goal of building a viable state. Carter argues that well before the Tet Offensive shocked the viewing public in late January 1968, the campaign in southern Vietnam had completely failed and, furthermore, that the program contained the seeds of its own failure from the outset.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. The Cold War, colonialism, and the origins of the American commitment to Vietnam, 1945-1954

3. 'The needs are enormous, the time short': Michigan State University, the United States operations mission, nation building, and Vietnam

4. Surviving the crises: Southern Vietnam, 1958-1960

5. 'A permanent mendicant': Southern Vietnam, 1960-1963

6. A period of shakedown: Southern Vietnam, 1963-1965

7. The paradox of construction and destruction: Southern Vietnam 1966-1968

8. Epilogue: war, politics, and the end in Vietnam.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-262) and index.

ISBN:

9780521888653

0521888654

9780521716901

052171690X

OCLC:

180989537

Online:

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