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| 1 |
ID:
159675
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Vietnam War, a new documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, is one of the filmmakers’ most ambitious projects. The ten-episode series aired on PBS last fall and seeks to be a definitive and comprehensive narrative history of the war. Burns and Novick focus on the period from 1965 to 1973, when American ground troops fought alongside the South Vietnamese. In an effort to explain how the war has profoundly affected American society and culture, they also cover the anti-war movement and political developments in the United States. The filmmakers interviewed dozens of American and Vietnamese participants, whose voices and stories personalize this complicated history. The series requires a significant time commitment from viewers—together the episodes are eighteen hours long—but offers a stunning visual account of one of the most controversial and complex events in the twentieth century. The documentary is accessible to general audiences and poses many questions about the causes of the war in Vietnam, how and why the United States became involved, and the legacies of the conflict. Ultimately, however, the documentary raises more questions than it answers.
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| 2 |
ID:
134905
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines South Vietnamese and American efforts to aid in the migration and resettlement of nearly one million northerners during the mid-1950s. I argue that those efforts were not the overwhelming success that policy makers claimed, but instead failed to satisfy critical goals such as enlarging Ngo Dinh Diem’s political base and increasing South Vietnam’s chances of survival.
This article also concludes that refugee resettlement laid the groundwork for future American involvement in Vietnam and foreshadowed tensions that ultimately doomed the partnership between Diem and the United States. Their experiences during the refugee period instilled in American policy makers and civilian aid workers a misplaced optimism about Diem as well as the effectiveness of U.S. efforts to support and “modernize” the South Vietnamese state. Understanding this critical episode illuminates some of the previously overlooked explanations for the failures of U.S. nation building and the tragedy of the war in Vietnam.
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