HISTORY 280: VIETNAM: THE AMERICAN WAR

Fall 2002
Wednesday 6:00-8:50
Lassen 2101
GENERAL INFORMATION
Prof. Jeffrey Dym
Office: Tahoe 3099
Office Hours: TR 1:45-3:00
And by appointment!

Office Phone: 278-4425

e-mail: Dym@csus.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION
It is often said that winners write history, yet in the case of the Vietnam
War it has been the losers who have written the dominant discourse that
permeates the American educational system. History textbooks in the
United States present an American perspectives that suggests that the
Vietnamese victory was more a result of American military and political
mistakes than Vietnamese resilience and fortitude. It was not the
Vietnamese who won but rather the Americans who let them win. The
implication being that had the involved parties in the United States been
more focused and more united Vietnam never would have won. In a little
over ten years from the bombing of Pearl Harbor the United States formed a
security alliance with its arch-enemy Japan. It would take over twenty years
for the United States to normalize relations with Vietnam. Americans do not
like losing and as a result many in the United States have belittled the
accomplishments of the Vietnamese. Yet, throughout Vietnams history, the
Vietnamese people have showed incredible muster as they have fended off
and defeated major adversaries such as China and France. Thus, in order to
truly understand the conflict that transpired in Vietnam, it is essential that
one gain an appreciation for the Vietnamese perspective of The American
War. Through weekly readings and discussions this course will provide you
with a broad understanding of how the war in Vietnam affected the people
of Vietnam.
REQUIRED TEXTS
1. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History.
2. Truong Buu Lam. Colonialism Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on
Colonialism, 1900-1931.
3. Duiker, William. Ho Chi Minh: A Life.
4. Truong Nhu Tang. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam
War and its Aftermath.
5. Hayslip, Le Ly and Jay Wurts. When Heaven and Earth changed Places: A
Vietnamese Womans Journey from War to Peace.

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6. Chong, Denise. The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the
Photograph, and the Vietnam War.
7. Elliot, Duong Van Mai. The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of
a Vietnamese Family.
8. Le Huu Tri. Prisoner of the Word: A Memoir of the Vietnamese
Reeducation Camps.
9. Templer, Robert. Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance and Participation
Attendance and active participation are required of all members of this
seminar. I expect students to come to class having done the reading and
prepared to discuss the material in an intellectually engaging fashion. You
must either read the common read for the week or one of the other books
listed. Failure to read anything as indicated by a lack of participation or an
inability to answer a question about the reading will severely hurt your
grade. Students who miss two or more classes will be in danger of failing
the seminar.
Book Reports
You are to write EIGHT book reports over the course of the semester.
Four of the books must be common reads and four other books. Which
eight books you choose to write on is up to you.
Book reports should be 3-4 single-spaced pages in length. Insert a blank
line between paragraphs. Book reports must contain the following five
items: Title (provide a full citation of the work under review), Author (a
short biography about the author of the book), Thesis (a brief summary of
the authors thesis), Content Summary (summarize the major sections of
the work), Reviewers Reactions (find two to three scholarly reviews of
the book and summarize their conclusions (be sure to give the citation for
the review)), and Personal Reaction (what do you think about the book).
For students writing on Other books, in addition to the formal paper, you
will also be expected to give a 15 minute class presentation on the work.
For book reports on common reads please submit 2 copies.
For book reports on other reads please submit 2 copies and bring 14
additional copies to handout to fellow classmates.
You may read other books not listed below as long as they adhere to the
following criteria:
1. They are related to that weeks topic.

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2. Approval of the instructor.
Literature summary
For Week 14, you are to read a work of literature and write a two page
synopsis of the work. (Please submit 2 copies; and bring 14 to handout).
You will also be required to make a ten minute presentation on the book.
Summation Paper
A 10-15 page double-spaced typed paper is due at the beginning of the last
seminar meeting on December 11. You are to write a paper that
synthesizes the material covered in class by answering the following
question:
How do the Vietnamese view the conflict that transpired in
their country between 1954-1975 and how did the war affect
them?
Grading:
Attendance and Participation
Book Reports
Literature summary
Summation Paper

30%
40%
5%
25%
100%

PLAGIARISM
The word plagiarism derives from Latin roots: plagiarius, an abductor, and
plagiare, to steal. The expropriation of another authors text, and the
presentation of it as ones own, constitutes plagiarism (Perspectives, March
2002).
Plagiarizing, trying to pass someone elses work off as your own, is a serious
violation of the CSUS honor code. Cutting and pasting something from the
internet, for example, is a flagrant example of plagiarism. If you are caught
plagiarizing, you will receive a zero on the assignment and the matter may
be turned over to the CSUS authorities for possible disciplinary action.

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CLASS SCHEDULE
Week 1: Introduction to the Course (September 4)
Week 2: The Vietnam War: The American Perspective (September 11)
Common Read
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking Press, 1983.
Other books
Fitzgerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans
in Vietnam. Atlantic-Little, 1972.
Gibson, James William. The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam.
Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986.
Halberstam, David. The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam
During the Kennedy Era. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Herring, George C. Americas Longest War. New York : Knopf, 1986.
Langguth, A. J. Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975. New York: Touchstone
Book, 2000.
Patti, Archimedes. Why Vietnam: Prelude to Americas Albatross.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in
Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988; Vintage, 1989.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars. Harper Perennial, 1991.
Week 3: The Colonial Period (September 18)
Common Read
Truong Buu Lam. Colonialism Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on
Colonialism, 1900-1931. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan, 2000
Other books
Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900-1941.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976.

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Eastman, Lloyd E. Throne and Mandarins: China's Search for a Policy
During the Sino-French Controversy 1880-1885. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1967.
Fall, Bernard. The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. Philadelphia : Lippincott,
1967.
Goscha, Christopher E. Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of
the Vietnamese Revolution, 1885-1954. London: Curzon Press, 1999.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai. Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese
Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Kelly, Gail Paradise. French Colonial Education: Essays on Vietnam and
West Africa. New York: AMS Press, 2000.
Marr, Daivd G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1995.
------------. Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885-1925. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1971.
------------. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial 1920-1945. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1981.
McAleavy, Henry. Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of a Chinese
Intervention. London: Allen and Unwin, 1968.
McLeod, Mark W. The Vietnamese Response to French Intervention,
1862-1874. New York: Praeger, 1991.
Murray, Martin J. The Development of Capitalism in Colonial Indochina
(1870-1940). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Ngo Vinh Long, Before the Revolution: The Vietnamese Peasants Under
the French. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991, orig. pub. By
MIT in 1973.
------------------. Vietnamese Women in Society and Revolution: 1. The
French Colonial Period. Cambridge: Vietnam Resource Center, 1974.
Osborne, Milton E. The French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia:
Rule and Response (1859-1905). Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.

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Tran Tu Binh. The Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir of Life on a Colonial
Rubber Plantation, Trans. John Spragens, Jr., ed., David G. Marr.
Athens, OH: Ohio University, Monographs in International Studies,
Southeast Asia Series, no. 66, 1985.
Woodside, Alexander B. Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976.
Zinoman, Peter. The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in
Vietnam, 1862-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Week 4 & 5 : Ho Chi Minh & the Communists (Sept. 25 & Oct. 2)
Common Read
Duiker, William. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. Hyperion, 2001.
Other Books: Ho Chi Minh
Archer, Jules. Ho Chi Minh: Legend of Hanoi. MacMillan Publishing
Company, 1971.
Fenn, Charles. Ho Chi Minh: A Biographical Introduction. London, Studio
Vista, 1973.
Halberstam, David. Ho. New York: Random House, 1971.
Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh: Selected Writings. New York: Praeger, 1967.
Huyen, N. Khac. Vision Accomplished? The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh. New
York: Collier Books, 1971.
Lacouture, Jean. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography. New York: Random
House, 1968.
Lloyd, Dana Ohlmeyer. Ho Chi Minh: World Leaders Past and Present.
Chelsea House Pub, 1986.
Kobelev. E. V. Ho Chi Minh.
Osborne, Milton. Ho Chi Minh. Univ of Queensland Pr, 1982.
Quinn-Judge, Sophie. Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002.

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Thien Ton-That. Ho Chi Minh and the Comintern: Was Ho Chi Minh a
Nationalist?
Warbey, William. Ho Chi Minh and the Struggle for an Independent
Vietnam. London: Merlin Press, 1972.
Other Books: Communists
Chanoff, David and Doan Van Toai. Portrait of the Enemy. New York:
Random House, 1986.
Duiker, William. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. Boulder:
Westview Press, 1981.
Hodgkin, Thomas. Vietnam: The Revolutionary Path. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1981.
Huynh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese Communism 1925-1945. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1982.
Nguyen Duy Trinh et al. In the Enemy's Net: Memoirs from the
Revolution. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962.
Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca,
N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1993.
Week 6: Soldiers (October 9)
Common Read
Truong Nhu Tang. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam
War and its Aftermath. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
Other Books
Bui Tin. Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel.
Trans. Judy Stowe and Do Van. London: C. Hurst, 1994. Pub. in U.S. by
University of Hawaii Press, 1995.
Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nams Gen. Vo
Nguyen Giap. Dulles, VA: Brassey, 1997.
Kiem Do and Julie Kane. Counterpart: A South Vietnamese Naval
Officers War. United States Naval Inst., 1998.
Nguyen Khac Vien. The Long Resistance: 1858-1975. 2nd Edit. Hanoi:
Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1978.

Tran Van Don. Our Endless War. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978.
Tran Van Tra. Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B-2 Theatre. Vol. 5:
Concluding the 30-Years War. Washington, D.C.: Joint Publications
Research Service, 1983.
Week 7: Female Perspectives (October 16)
Common Read
Hayslip, Le Ly and Jay Wurts. When Heaven and Earth changed Places:
A Vietnamese Womans Journey from War to Peace. New York:
Doubleday, 1989.
Other Books
Hoang Ngoc Thanh Dung. To Serve the Cause of Women's Liberation.
To Be Made Over: Tales of Socialist Reeducation in Vietnam. Ed. and
trans. Huynh Sanh Thong. Lac-Viet Series No. 5. New Haven, CT: Yale
Council on SEA Studies, 1988. 43- 77.
Lady Borton. After Sorrow: An American Among the Vietnamese.
Kodansha International, 1996.
Nguyen Thi Dinh. No Other Road to Take. Trans. by Mai Eliot. Data Paper
No. 102. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell U., 1976.
Nguyen Thi Thu-Lam with Edith Kreisler and Sandra Christenson. Fallen
Leaves: Memoirs of a Vietnamese Woman from 1940 to 1975. Lac Viet
Series No. 11. New Haven, CT: Yale Council on SEA Studies, 1989.
Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai. The Rubber Tree. Edited by Monique Senderowicz.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994.
Phan Thi Nhu Bang. Ta Thi Kieu: An Heroic Girl of Bentre. South
Vietnam: Liberation Editions, 1966.
Taylor, Sandra C. Vietnamese Women at War: Fighting for Ho Chi Minh
and the Revolution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999.
Turner, Karen Gottschang Turner, et al. Even the Women Must Fight:
Memories of War from North Vietnam. John Wiley and Sons, 1999.
Vietnamese Women. Vietnamese Studies No. 10. Hanoi: Democratic
Republic of Vietnam, 1966.

Week 8: The Losers and the Wounded (October 23)

Common Read
Chong, Denise. The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the
Photograph, and the Vietnam War. Viking Press, 2000.
Other Books
Bilton, Michael and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Viking,
1992.
Freeman, James A. Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese-American Lives.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.
Hickey, Gerald C. Shattered World: Adaptation and Survival Among
Vietnams Highland Peoples During the Vietnam War. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
Lam Quang Thi. Autopsy: The Death of South Viet Nam. Phoenix, AZ:
Sphinx, 1986.
Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and
Day, 1976.
Week 9 & 10: Families Torn Apart & Children Left Behind (Oct. 30 & Nov. 6)
Common Read
Elliot, Duong Van Mai. The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life
of a Vietnamese Family.
Other Books
Bass, Thomas A. Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home. New York :
Soho, 1996.
Krall, Yung. A Thousand Tears Falling: The True Story of a Vietnamese
Family Torn Apart by War, Communism, and the CIA. Atlanta, GA:
Longstreet Press, 1995.
McKelvey, Robert S. The Dust of Life: Americas Children Abandoned in
Vietnam. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.
Nguyen, Kien. The Unwanted.

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Nguyen Qui Duc. Where the Ashes Are: The Odyssey of a Vietnamese
Family. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994.
Week 11: Postwar Vietnam (November 13)
Common Read
Le Huu Tri. Prisoner of the Word: A Memoir of the Vietnamese
Reeducation Camps. Black Heron Press, 2001.
Other Books
Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War After the War. San Diego:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.
Evans, Grant and Kelvin Rowley. The Red Brotherhood at War:
Indochina Since the Fall of Saigon. London: Verso, 1986.
Huynh Sanh Thong, ed. and trans. To Be Made Over: Tales of Socialist
Reeducation in Vietnam. Lac-Viet Series No. 5. New Haven, CT: Yale
Council on Southeast Asia Studies, 1988.
Jade Ngoc Quang Huynh. South Wind Changing. Saint Paul, MN:
Graywolf Press, 1994.
Nguyen Long with Harry H. Kendall. After Saigon Fell: Daily Life Under the
Vietnamese Communists. Research Papers and Policy Studies Series
of the Institute of East Asian Studies. Berkeley: University of California,
1981.
Sheehan, Neil. After the War Was Over (Hanoi and Saigon). New York:
Random House, 1988.
Tran Da Tu. Writers and Artists in Vietnamese Gulags. Elkhart, Ind.:
Century Publishing House, 1990.
Tran Tri Vu. Lost Years: My 1,632 Days in Vietnamese Reeducation
Camps. Trans. by Nguyen Phuc Indochina Research Monograph
Series of the Institute of East Asian Studies. Berkeley: University of
California, 1988.
Week 12: Vietnam Today (Doi Moi) (November 20)
Common Read
Templer, Robert. Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam.
London: Little, Brown, 1998.

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Other Books
Kamm, Henry. Dragon Ascending: Vietnam and the Vietnamese. Arcade
Publishing, 1996.
Hiebert, Murray. Chasing the Tigers: A Portrait of the New Vietnam. New
York: Kodansha International, 1996.
Week 13: To be Announced (November 27)
Week 14: Vietnamese History Through Literature (December 4)
Choices
Bao, Ninh. The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam.
Duong Thu Huong. Novel Without a Name.
Duong Thu Huong. Paradise of the Blind.
Jamieson, Neil. Understanding Vietnam (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995).
Le Luu. A Time Far Past: A Novel of Viet Nam.
Nguyen Huy Thiep. The General Retires and Other Stories.
Nhat Linh. Severance.
Thai, Ho Anh. Behind the Red Mist.
Socialist Literature
Anh Duc. Hon Dat. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1969.
Back to His Home Village. Hibiscus Series. Hanoi: Foreign Languages
Publishing House, 1981.
Distant Stars. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1976.
The Fire Blazes. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1965.
The Ivory Comb. 2nd Edit. South Viet Nam: Giai Phong Publishing
House, 1968.

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Literature and National Liberation in South Vietnam. Vietnamese Studies
No. 14. Hanoi: Xunhasaba, n.d.
Week 15: Summation (Vietnamese Dinner??) (December 11)
PAPERS DUE