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Look Inside Inventing Vietnam

Inventing Vietnam
The United States and State Building, 1954–1968

  • Date Published: April 2008
  • availability: Available
  • format: Paperback
  • isbn: 9780521716901

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About the Authors
  • 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 17th 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 which 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, the program contained the seeds of its own failure from the outset.

    • Clear and readable history of the period
    • Presents a novel interpretation of the causes of the Vietnam war
    • Incorporates a nuanced understanding of US foreign policy and in-depth coverage of the war
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    Reviews & endorsements

    '… his work adds an important piece of understanding to the extremely complex jigsaw which was Vietnam at the time.' Asian Affairs

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    Product details

    • Date Published: April 2008
    • format: Paperback
    • isbn: 9780521716901
    • length: 276 pages
    • dimensions: 229 x 152 x 16 mm
    • weight: 0.38kg
    • contains: 15 b/w illus.
    • availability: Available
  • Table of 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
    The paradox of construction and destruction: Southern Vietnam 1966–1968
    8. Epilogue: war, politics, and the end in Vietnam.

  • Instructors have used or reviewed this title for the following courses

    • Advanced Topics in Mathematics: Lie Algebras and Quantum Groups
    • America in Vietnam
    • Lie Theory
    • The Vietnam War
    • The Vietnamese Conflict: An International History
    • Topics in Mathematics
  • Author

    James M. Carter, Drew University, New Jersey
    James M. Carter obtained his PhD from the University of Houston in 2004 and is currently Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. His research specialties include U.S. foreign relations, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. His publications include several articles on nation building in Vietnam and private contractors in both Vietnam and Iraq as well as book reviews in Itinerario, The Journal of Military History, Education About Asia, and on H-Diplo. In summer, 2007, he was appointed a Fellow of the Summer Military History Seminar at West Point Military Academy.

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