Vietnam and the West

Wynn Wilcox (Edited by)

9780877277828

Hardback, published 15 November 2010

224 pages
25.4 x 17.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.907 kg

Vietnam and the West is a smart, ambitious... collection.... [that] manages to unearth nuanced historical nuggets complicating the internal/external binaries and domestic/foreign relationship perceptions of nearly all previous Vietnamese historical scholarship.

This sound interpretation of Vietnamese cultural attitudes contends that a major reason for American difficulties in Viet-Nam has been the failure to appreciate how wide the gulf is between Viet-Nam and the West. Professor Smith first describes Vietnamese political and social traditions and shows how they were challenged by the West after 1858. He examines Viet-Nam's search for independence and modernization in the first half of this century, contrasts the two governments of the partitioned country during the years 1954-1963, and stresses the critical need to reassess attitudes toward Viet-Nam. His sophisticated, ambitious survey of Viet-Nam history will have a lasting value that sets it apart from the scores of ephemeral books on this country.