Product Description
Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.

Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include


* customs, values, and traditions
* historical, religious, and political background
* life at home
* leisure, social, and cultural life
* eating and drinking
* do's, don'ts, and taboos
* business practices
* communication, spoken and unspoken


"Culture Smart has come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel

"... the perfect introduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of various countries." Global Travel

"...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips to help you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer

"...as useful as they are entertaining." Easyjet Magazine

"...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New York Times
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

great for understanding history, culture, and customs of Vietnam
This is not a tour guide but a great introduction to customs of Vietnam.It is essential for anyone going to Vietnam for business.I read it in preparation for my photographic trip to Vietnam and while it will not help me with my photography, it will help me understand the country and customs.

Vietnam - Land of Smiles!
It's a cliché in our consumer-oriented world to say that yet another new device or accessory is "must-have". Even so, I don't hesitate to say that for the intending traveller to Vietnam this little book, clearly designed to fit easily into the pocket or backpack pouch, is a must-have item.
I write with some authority because, although I've not yet been to Vietnam, I have a Vietnamese wife who in turn has Vietnamese children and numerous relatives and friends from her homeland and who now live here in Australia.
This means that my exposure to many aspects of their culture has been and is reached from the privileged position of head of our small family. I can therefore vouch for the accuracy of much of the excellent advice Mr Murray has provided in this book.
That I can't give my blessing to the whole of the contents is not a reflection on the author, or those contents, but rather is my bowing to his vastly superior knowledge of both the people and the land he describes. In other words I found, in spite of my experience, there was much for me to learn, and indeed one reading is not sufficient to take in and retain all that he has to offer.
In recent years Vietnam has been re-discovered. After decades of civil war followed by more decades of dislocation and isolation this little country is finally emerging again, and in doing so is giving the lie to the view that it is a hostile place. Far from it, visitors from around the world are being surprised by its beauty and charm.
So, if you're planning a trip to the land of these friendly and hospitable people, or even if you're merely curious about them, their ancient culture, and their long and fascinating history, I can only repeat, "Culture Smart - VIETNAM" by Geoffrey Murray is a compact, sensitive, authoritative, informative, easy-to-read, must-have.

Vietnam: A Quick Guide to Customs & Culture
As the title says, the book is a quick guide to Vietnamese customs and etiquette. It does not go into great depth but covers the subjects overall pretty well. I'd recommend it. Contents include how to avoid culture shock; Vietnamese attitudes and values; historical and political background; religion, customs, and traditions; the Vietnamese at home; leisure, social, and cultural life; dos, don'ts, and taboos; body language; hospitality, food, and drink; giving and receiving gifts; business briefing; and language and communications. That's a lot to cover in 168 pages in a pocket sized book. I'd also recommend "Vietnam Today" by Mark A. Ashwill for a little more depth. ... Read more

Product Description

Vietnam is increasingly opening up to the West, and society is in flux between tradition and modernity, and socialism and capitalism. Americans have distanced themselves from the Vietnam War now, and Culture and Customs of Vietnam fills a need to learn about the country, which has also evolved. Readers will find that this is the only general book on Vietnamese culture in English written by specialists. McLeod and Nguyen, historians specializing in Vietnam engagingly show the various forces of Vietnamese culture in narrative chapters on the land, people, and language; history and institutions; thought and religion; literature; art and architecture; cuisine; family, marriage, gender, and youth culture; festivals and leisure activities, and performing arts.

Culture and Customs of Vietnam is a comprehensive, one-stop source, providing the most useful and intriguing information for students and general readers. Some of the highlights include the discussion of the Chinese influence in writing, thought, and religion; eating habits; the changing family; and water puppetry. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos complement the text.

Customer Reviews (2)

Rif-off
The history was fine, but the illustrations were horrible. Since the little book was $55, I assumed the inflated price was because it contained some beautiful, colored pictures. They were so dark that I couldn't even see what the picture was about. I had intended to buy the whole series, but I couldn't even see how that book went through the publisher, the quality was so inferior.

Great overview of Vietnamese history and culture.
Written by a husband and wife team, with years of experience in Vietnam and its culture, this well developed text provides a detailed look at most of the major areas of Vietnamese culture and customs. Topic areas covered include Vietnamese history, cultural impacts of war and occupation, religion, literature, architecture, food and cuisine, family culture, festivals, and the arts. I would heartily recommend this book to families who have adopted from Vietnam - AdoptVietnam.org - or for anyone who is interested in a more complete understanding of Vietnam and its people. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

This is simply a "must buy"
This is one of the two books I read in preparing for a 3 week stay in Vietnam. The content was right on the mark, and helpful for even this traveler. In essential tips it more than paid for itself! It is simply amust for those traveling to Vietnam.

Culture Shock: Vietnam
This book is a must for anyone planning a visit to Vietnam.My wife and I visited Hanoi three years ago and the content of this book hit the mark.It is full of practical information that is up to date and written bysomeone who has been there.This book will keep you from cultural mistakesthat might cause you to offend someone and will help you get around thecountry in a smoother way.Our family is now returning to Vietnam for afour year stay and this book will be going with us! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

A fine look at one of the positively changing nations in recent history
Vietnam has come such a long way since the notorious war. "Vietnam Rising: Culture and Change in Asia's Tiger Cub" takes a scholarly look at the economic rise of Vietnam in the recent years. William Ratliff discusses what led to this turn around, ranging from cultural influences, history, religion, and much more, changing Vietnam from a communist country to one of the freest markets on the planet. "Vietnam Rising" is a fine look at one of the positively changing nations in recent history. ... Read more

Product Description
The Vietnam War has been depicted by every available medium, each presenting a message, an agenda, of what the filmmakers and producers choose to project about America's involvement in Southeast Asia. This collection of essays, most of which are previously unpublished, analyzes the themes, modes, and stylistic strategies seen in a broad range of films and television programs. From diverse perspectives, the contributors comprehensively examine early documentary and fiction films, postwar films of the 1970s such as "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now", and the reformulated postwar films of the 1980s "Platoon", "Full Metal Jacket", and "Born on the Fourth of July". They also address made-for-television movies and serial dramas like "China Beach" and "Tour of Duty". The authors show how the earliest film responses to America's involvement in Vietnam employ myth and metaphor and are at times unable to escape glamorized Hollywood. Later films strive to portray a more realistic Vietnam experience, often creating images that are an attempt to memorialize or to manufacture different kinds of myths.As they consider direct and indirect representations of the war, the contributors also examine the power or powerlessness of individual soldiers, the racial views presented, and inscriptions of gender roles. Also included in this volume is a chapter that discusses teaching Vietnam films and helping students discern and understand film rhetoric, what the movies say, and who they chose to communicate those messages. Michael Anderegg is Professor of English at the University of North Dakota, and author of two other books: "William Wyler" and "David Lean". ... Read more

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War veterans, journalists, poets and professors have contributed to this study which describes how US culture represented and continues to represent the Vietnam War on television, in newspapers, in military propaganda films, novels, plays and music. ... Read more

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"'I never got a chance to be a girl,' Kate O'Hare Palmer lamented, thirty-four years after her tour as an army nurse in Vietnam. Although proud of having served, she felt that the war she never understood had robbed her of her innocence and forced her to grow up too quickly. As depicted in a photograph taken late in her tour, long hours in the operating room exhausted her both physically and mentally. Her tired eyes and gaunt face reflected th e weariness she felt after treating countless patients, some dying, some maimed, all, like her, forever changed. Still, she learned to work harder and faster than she thought she could, to trust her nursing skills, and to live independently. She developed a way to balance the dangers and benefits of being a woman in the army and in the war. Only fourteen months long, her tour in Vietnam profoundly affected her life and her beliefs."

Such vivid personal accounts abound in historian Kara Dixon Vuic's compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service.

Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 women nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army's patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight.

Officer, Nurse, Woman brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible -- and divisive -- war.

Customer Reviews (1)

A truly remarkable and groundbreaking book
This is a truly remarkable and groundbreaking book, one that will be of interest to anyone with even a passing curiosity in either military, social, or women's history. Professor Vuic's careful and thoroughly researched analysis promises to be the benchmark to which all studies of women and the Vietnam War will be compared to for many years to come.

There are a number of ways that make Professor Vuic's such a very important work. For one, she has examined an issue that has been neglected for far too long. Over forty years after the Women's Movement of the 1960s, there remains far too little scholarship on the role of women during wartime. It is about time that a writer and scholar with Professor Vuic's knowledge and expertise examine the role of gender during the nation's longest war. As Diana Carlson Evans had asked the Senate in 1988, "Who decides who America will remember?"

Another factor that makes this book a must read is Professor Vuic's unique approach to her topic. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Professor Vuic gives the reader a personal account of how women impacted the war, and vice-versa. And the stories that she relates are incredibly moving and touching. Professor Vuic's study gives the reader such a wide variety of vivid and memorable recollections concerning the role of women nurses in the Vietnam War. In a war that is often reduced to statistics, Professor Vuic has provided a very human face.

Professor Vuic's fascinating text is also quite timely. It is indeed quite remarkable how, thirty-five years after the end of the war, the Vietnam War remains an essential part of the American psyche. Everything from the recent PBS American Experience documentary of the My Lai massacre to the controversy surrounding Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's past statements regarding his service during the Vietnam War demonstrate the continued power of the Vietnam conflict. And, of course, the controversial issue of women in combat has been an essential element to various analyses of our nation's current wars in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.

As a teacher of American history, I look forward to using this book in my classes. But what makes this book so important is it's usefulness to non-academic audiences alike. Anyone who wants to learn more about the Vietnam War, as well as about the impact and ramifications of the modern Women's Movement, would greatly benefit from the purchase of Professor Vuic's book. It is a must read.
... Read more

Product Description
In the late 1980s, Vietnam joined the global economy after decades of war and relative isolation, demonstrating how a former socialist government can adapt to global market forces with their neoliberal emphasis on freedom of choice for entrepreneurs and consumers. "The Ironies of Freedom" examines an aspect of this new market: commercial sex. Nguyen-vo offers an ambitious analysis of gender and class conflicts surrounding commercial sex as a site of market freedom, governmental intervention, and depictions in popular culture to argue that these practices reveal the paradoxical nature of neo-liberalism. What the case of Vietnam highlights is that governing with current neoliberal globalization may and does take paradoxical forms, sustained not by some vestige from times past but by contemporary conditions.Of mutual benefit to both the neoliberal global economy and the ruling party in Vietnam is the use of empirical knowledge and entrepreneurial and consumer's choice differentially among segments of the population to produce different kinds of labourers and consumers for the global market.But also of mutual benefit to both are the police, the prison, and notions of cultural authenticity enabled by a ruling party with well-developed means of coercion from its history.The freedom-unfreedom pair in governance creates a tension in modes of representation conducive to a new genre of sensational social realism in literature and popular films like the 2003 "Bar Girls" about two women in the sex trade, replete with nudity, booze, drugs, violence, and death. The movie opened in Vietnam with unprecedented box office receipts, blazing a trail for a commercially viable domestic film industry.Combining methods and theories from the social sciences and humanities, Nguyen-vo's analysis relies on fieldwork conducted in Ho Chi Minh City and its vicinity, in-depth interviews with informants, participant observation at selected sites of sexual commerce and governmental intervention, journalistic accounts, and literature and films.In the late 1980s, Vietnam joined the global economy after decades of war and relative isolation, demonstrating how a former socialist government can adapt to global market forces with their neoliberal emphasis on freedom of choice for entrepreneurs and consumers."The Ironies of Freedom" examines an aspect of this new market: commercial sex. Nguyen-vo offers an ambitious analysis of gender and class conflicts surrounding commercial sex as a site of market freedom, governmental intervention, and depictions in popular culture to argue that these practices reveal the paradoxical nature of neo-liberalism. What the case of Vietnam highlights is that governing with current neoliberal globalization may and does take paradoxical forms, sustained not by some vestige from times past but by contemporary conditions.Of mutual benefit to both the neoliberal global economy and the ruling party in Vietnam is the use of empirical knowledge and entrepreneurial and consumer's choice differentially among segments of the population to produce different kinds of labourers and consumers for the global market.But also of mutual benefit to both are the police, the prison, and notions of cultural authenticity enabled by a ruling party with well-developed means of coercion from its history.The freedom-unfreedom pair in governance creates a tension in modes of representation conducive to a new genre of sensational social realism in literature and popular films like the 2003 "Bar Girls" about two women in the sex trade, replete with nudity, booze, drugs, violence, and death. The movie opened in Vietnam with unprecedented box office receipts, blazing a trail for a commercially viable domestic film industry.Combining methods and theories from the social sciences and humanities, Nguyen-vo's analysis relies on fieldwork conducted in Ho Chi Minh City and its vicinity, in-depth interviews with informants, participant observation at selected sites of sexual commerce and governmental intervention, journalistic accounts, and literature and films. This book will appeal to historians and political scientists of Southeast Asia and to scholars of gender and sexuality, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and political theory dealing with neoliberalism.Thu-huong Nguyen-vo is assistant professor of Asian languages and cultures and Asian American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Great Book On Little Known Subject
Steven Morris's work on this book is amazing. I have such a better understanding of the conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam from the early '70s to 1989. North Vietnam, China and the USSR are culpable regarding the victory of Pol Pot in 1975, and not American bombing as so many Stalinists try to claim. N. Vietnam had their eyes on Cambodia all along, but had to buy their time during the conflict with the U.S.

Superbly researched and carefully argued
This book is undoubtedly one of the few "must have" books on Vietnam and Cambodia. The author has produced a very carefully argued and superbly researched analysis of the Vietnamese relationship with Cambodiaand the Vietnamese relationships with the Soviet Union and China. It showshow our conventional thinking in terms of states only pursuing theirnational security or economic interests doesn't explain why the Vietnameseand the Khmers Rouges each provoked their larger neighbors (The KhmersRouges provoked Vietnam and Vietnam provoked China). The idea that the weakcan provoke the stronger goes against our "common sense"understanding of how states behave, but it obviously did happen in thesecases. Morris also has a very good writing style (I even found the moreabstract conceptual discussion in the introduction and conclusion quiteeasy to follow) and the narrative flows quite nicely. He has alsointroduced the concept of "hyperMaoism" to explain the outlook ofthe Khmers Rouges, which is something that I find quite insightful. Hisresearch in Soviet archives also brought forth some fascinatingrevelations, regarding how little the Vietnamese leadership knew andunderstood about the motives of the Khmers Rouges leaders. And the Sovietdocuments also bring completely new information on how Vietnam's relationswith China broke down during the 1970s.I had read every book published onthe Vietnamese communists and the Khmers Rouges, but this book has taughtme a lot that I didn't know. The tone of the work is quite dispassionate,and its approach completely objective, as Morris tries to get inside thethinking of all of the parties to the conflict. Highly recommended.

Many assumed 'facts' went uncheck
After so many years of digging through the Soviet archives, Mr. Morris forgot to double and triple check his supposedly 'facts' and got carried away with believing everything he read from the basements in Moscow.

The problem with Morris analysis is that it left out the Beijing angle. The Vietnam-Cambodian war was driven more from China than from Vietnam andthe Soviet.The CCP has a lot of influence and control over this war whichwas barely accounted for in this book.

There's also another problemwith an analysis based solely on ideological ground i.e. communist regimewages war because they can, because they are evil, warlike andundemocratic.Besides being not very useful in pedagogical terms, this ofcourse left out the more important historical analysis that Vietnam andCambodia has a long history of many small wars.And the Vietnam-Cambodianwar could be viewed as an attempt to continue Vietnam's territorialexpansion that began from the 17th century.

Mr. Morris assessments in thebook should be read in light of his other 'hysterical' pronouncement ofhaving found a document in Soviet archives showing that Hanoi had deceivedon POWs.The timing of his finding was also perfectly coincide with animpending congressional vote on improving US-Vietnam relationship.

T.N.

Many assumed 'facts' went uncheck
After so many years of digging through the Soviet archives, Mr. Morris forgot to double and triple check his supposedly 'facts' and got carried away with believing everything he read from the basements in Moscow.

The problem with Morris analysis is that it left out the Beijing angle. The Vietnam-Cambodian war was driven more from China than from Vietnam andthe Soviet.The CCP has a lot of influence and control over this war whichwas barely accounted for in this book.

There's also another problemwith an analysis based solely on ideological ground i.e. communist regimewages war because they can, because they are evil, warlike andundemocratic.Besides being not very useful in pedagogical terms, this ofcourse left out the more important historical analysis that Vietnam andCambodia has a long history of many small wars.And the Vietnam-Cambodianwar could be viewed as an attempt to continue Vietnam's territorialexpansion that began from the 17th century.

Mr. Morris assessments in thebook should be read in light of his other 'hysterical' pronouncement ofhaving found a document in Soviet archives showing that Hanoi had deceivedon POWs.

T.N.

Well-documented history followed by a bold assessment.
A scholarly analysis of the history behind the 1978-89 Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia, followed by the author's brutally frank assessment of the consequences.As the author states, a final assessmentis premature, but recent events do indeed cause the reader to wonder howlong the Vietnamese will continue to be pleased with the tactics of its"clients".Readers will also want to review "Falling Out ofTouch" by Goscha and Engelbert for another look at historicalrelations between the Vietnamese and Cambodian communists. ... Read more

Product Description

The Vietnam War was one of the most heavily documented conflicts of the twentieth century. Although the events themselves recede further into history every year, the political and cultural changes the war brought about continue to resonate, even as a new generation of Americans grapples with its own divisive conflict.

America and the Vietnam War: Re-examining the Culture and History of a Generation reconsiders the social and cultural aspects of the conflict that helped to fundamentally change the nation. With chapters written by subject area specialists, America and the Vietnam War takes on subjects such as women’s role in the war, the music and the films of the time, the Vietnamese perspective, race and the war, and veterans and post-traumatic stress disorder. Features include:

• chapter summaries
• timelines
• discussion questions
• guides to further reading
• a companion website with primary source documents and tools (such as music and movie playlists) for both instructors and students.

Heavily illustrated and welcoming to students and scholars of this infamous and pivotal time, America and the Vietnam War is a perfect companion to any course on the Vietnam War Era.

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"Coming to terms with the Vietnam War--the war thatAmerica lost--has been a long, grueling struggle, mired by historicaldenial and distortion and, as Franklin so formidably reveals, mythsthat have become entrapped in American culture. He presents ascholarly, yet personal and lucid investigation of how these mythsevolved and why people depend upon them to answer the confusingquestions that have become the legacy of the war."--ForeWordKey Points: America's war in Vietnam was based on fantasies about both nations. Now public memory of the war has been transformed into myth. The illusion that the United States originally intervened to stop "North Vietnam" from invading "South Vietnam," the belief that returning veterans were frequently spat upon, and the fiction that American P.O.W.s were abandoned after the war--all permeate contemporary American culture, deeply influencing politics in the twenty-first century. The history of the antiwar movement has been falsified so blatantly that few Americans today would believe that by 1971 there was a revolutionary newspaper being published on every aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin or that 1500 crew members of the aircraft carrier U.S.S.Constellation signed a demand that Jane Fonda's antiwar show be allowed to perform on board the ship.The antiwar movement actually began in the fall of 1945, when hundreds of American merchant seamen protested against their ships being used to transport a French army to recolonize Vietnam. The movement reached its climax when tens of thousands of the soldiers and sailors fighting the war actively resisted the Nixon administration's attempts to achieve "victory." Although the antiwar movement is today often depicted as campus-centered, it pervaded American society. And contrary to popular belief, opposition to the war actually ran higher among Americans with less income and less education while support for the war ran higher among those with more wealth and more education.Wartime images that called into question the legitimacy of America's Vietnam policy have been reinterpreted in the postwar years to whitewash the U.S. role in the conflict. In popular media such as film and comic books, for example, the famous photograph of Saigon police chief General Loan assassinating a prisoner during the 1968 Tet Offensive has been transformed into its opposite. Today many Americans actually interpret the photograph as a picture of a Communist officer caught in the act of killing a South Vietnamese civilian.American science fiction profoundly influenced how the Vietnam War was conceived and conducted as well as the way it has been remembered. Building on his work as an advisory curator for the Smithsonian exhibit, "Star Trek and the Sixties," the author shows how the Vietnam War was a subtext for early episodes of the TV series Star Trek and how space exploration has been replaced by the militarization of space.The U.S. policy of "Winning Hearts and Minds" reached its climax in 1968 and 1969, when the CIA conducted a gigantic carrot-and-stick campaign aimed at reestablishing control in some of the countryside lost during the Tet Offensive. The stick was Operation Phoenix, a massive program of torture and assassination designed to root out the insurgent infrastructure. U.S. intelligence officers subsequently testified to Congress that not one of the many "Viet Cong suspects" whose arrest they witnessed ever survived interrogation. The carrot was a "land reform" program designed and run by a University of Washington law professor who also drew up the document that asserted a legal basis for Operation Phoenix and then later published a science fiction story articulating the assumptions underlying both programs.The Vietnam War has been the matrix of the "culture wars" of the past few decades, and these culture wars are intertwined with both the Vietnamese revolution and the wars waged against it by France and the United States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

just an awful ahistorical history
the tone and direction of this book is set in the prologue. some thirty years after Professor Franklin was fired by Stanford, he sat down with the intent to prove he was right. from his point of view, he probably is.

Franklin was America's greatest Melville scholar, and Stanford lost a great professor when he was purged. he is a genuine victim of the Vietnam war, and his victimhood lies in believing that history both started and stopped with Vietnam.

in his prologue, he is ecstatic that "the Vietnam War shattered many of the traditional narratives to formerly prevailing visions of the United States and its history." history is finished, yet he then links Vietnam with "various kinds of subsequent warfare, including bombings or invasions, in Grenada, Panama, Libya, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia." this is supposed to be an acknowledgment by Professor Franklin of an historical web, and it seems compelling at first.

of course, this "shattering of narratives" forgets our own Indian Wars, not to mention the Spanish-American war and subsequent century-long involvement in Philippine politics. hardly an historical break.

the main problem remains Professor Franklin's inability to deal with the greater Cold War that is the context of Vietnam. nowhere is the former Soviet Union. his interminable mouthings of phrases like "anti-imperialism" -- totally detached from any cogent philosophical system to explain this termo -- seem to lead to the conclusion that history did end (for Franklin) in Palo Alto.

H. Bruce Franklin is a great reader. his reading of The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade is brilliance. this book also reads well. while compelling, it is failed history.

Franklin admits that Stanford was right to fire him. well, I disagree. he should have apologized and kept his job. he should not have taken such an agitational marxist tone against the campus cops. he got swept up in it.

also despite the nice cover, the qualities of the fotos in this book are awful, like they have been printed on paper towels -- a real disservice to Mr. Franklin and his reflections on culture and politics.

Compelling facts woven into a gripping narrative
Franklin's text reviews the history of military aggression against the Vietnamese and the efforts of U.S. citizens to stop this aggression from the end of World War II, beyond the official cessation of hostilities, into the economic warfare that followed the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Having been born several years after the aggression in Vietnam, my understanding of the war came primarily from history textbooks and popular accounts. If I were to regard this popular story of Vietnam as a repainting of the war, then Vietnam and Other American Fantasies revealed the canvas upon which these lies were printed. Franklin has completely redefined my understanding of what happened both in Vietnam and in the United States before, during and after this horrible war.

Franklin gives lie to many of the popular myths about the war against Vietnam. One of the first myths that he attacks is that the so-called "liberal media" was responsible for "losing" the war by attacking the leadership and turning the public against a noble cause. The text establishes the blatant lies in this claim by reviewing coverage of the war before and after the Tet "turning point". If anything, the mainstream media was simply a mouthpiece for government propaganda, forcing the substantial proportion of the population opposed to U.S. aggression to use alternate media resources. If the mainstream media truly "lost" the war against Vietnam, then it did so by failing to bring the truth to the people and by blocking the growing voices of dissent from the public forum.

A second common myth that Franklin undermines is that U.S. actions in Vietnam were driven by a misguided effort to protect the people of South Vietnam from communist aggression. Instead, Franklin offers information that implicates the U.S. as the aggressor. Rather than responding to pleas for protection from the people of South Vietnam, the U.S. leadership actually incited aggression against both parties in an attempt to prevent a diplomatic resolution that would have prevented the U.S. from exploiting the nation as military foothold on the Asian continent. Moreover, farms, villages and entire cities were decimated by aerial bombing and ground assaults on both sides of the 17the parallel, and the South Vietnamese had as much to fear from U.S. forces as did the North Vietnamese.

A third myth that prevails today is that of the "Prisoners of War" and "Missing in Action". The claim that the Vietnamese government was secretly holding U.S. personnel or the remains and refusing to hand them over apparently has no evidential support, and historical records indicate that North Vietnamese leadership maintained careful records of U.S. prisoners and casualties and supplied all of these records to U.S. leadership upon request.

Many other popular myths, such as the practice of spitting on returning soldiers or the infamous photograph of the prisoner being executed (in reality, by a South Vietnamese officer) are also discussed in this engaging text. As a first-hand observer of some of the events he describes, Franklin manages to weave the story into an engaging narrative that holds your attention throughout. While I had planned to spread the reading out over several weeks, I found the story so engrossing that I finished it two days after I began. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in examining the history of the war against Vietnam and the people who opposed it.

Utterly worthless
Party line leftism from a dedicated enemy of America.Nothing good about this book.

More lies from the Left
More BS from a true red commie. One fails to mention the 1950 conference in Moscow with Stalin, Mao, and Uncle Ho where they plotted the war. This imbessile's lies are completely refuted by Vietnam: The Necessary War. This book is selective history. Not all factors that lead into and event are represented, only hogwash from a nostalgic hippie. He is the part of the same group of people that distorted the infamous napalm burned girl picture. That girl was hit by napalm from an aircraft piloted by a South Vietnamese pilot in where also a few ARVN soldiers were killed. But for some reason nuts like this guy called it American barbarism. His ilk also left out the caption the South Vietnamese photgrapher wrote on the bottom of the picture.

"This never would have happened if the Communists stayed in the North."

American fantasies explained
As a Vietnamese living in America, I have always been puzzled by different historical accounts of what went on during the Vietnam war.One account was what I learnt while growing up there.Another account was the Vietnam that many Americans know from the media.This book explained some of those differences well.The two Viet Nam (North and South), the gulf of Ton Kin incidence, the liberal press, antiwar activists spitting on returning GI, and the emotionally afflicting POW/MIA myth were the few fabrications concocted by various imperialistic American administrations.With the help of the jingoistic corporate press, they brainwashed the ill informed American public to garner support for the genocidal war in southeast Asia.Four million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians died from the "good intentions" of the United States.
Americans may have a free press.But are Americans free from the bias, prejudice, and bigotry of men who decide "all the news that's fit to print" and what is fit for us to read?Read the book and make up thy own mind. ... Read more

Product Description
Philip D. Beidler, who served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam, sees less and less of the hard-won perspective of the common soldier in what America has made of that war. Each passing year, he says, dulls our sense of immediacy about Vietnam's costs, opening wider the temptation to make it something more necessary, neatly contained, and justifiable than it should ever become. Here Beidler draws on deeply personal memories to reflect on the war's lingering aftereffects and the shallow, evasive ways we deal with them.

Beidler brings back the war he knew in chapters on its vocabulary, music, literature, and film. His catalog of soldier slang reveals how finely a tour of Vietnam could hone one's sense of absurdity. His survey of the war's pop hits looks for meaning in the soundtrack many veterans still hear in their heads. Beidler also explains how "Viet Pulp" literature about snipers, tunnel rats, and other hard-core types has pushed aside masterpieces like Duong Thu Huong's Novel without a Name. Likewise we learn why the movie The Deer Hunter doesn't "get it" about Vietnam but why Platoon and We Were Soldiers sometimes nearly do.

As Beidler takes measure of his own wartime politics and morals, he ponders the divergent careers of such figures as William Calley, the army lieutenant whose name is synonymous with the civilian massacre at My Lai, and an old friend, poet John Balaban, a conscientious objector who performed alternative duty in Vietnam as a schoolteacher and hospital worker.

Beidler also looks at Vietnam alongside other conflicts--including the war on international terrorism. He once hoped, he says, that Vietnam had fractured our sense of providential destiny and geopolitical invincibility but now realizes, with dismay, that those myths are still with us. "Americans have always wanted their apocalypses," writes Beidler, "and they have always wanted them now." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

clearest vision of The Nam
Philip Beidler deserves his reputation as a student, teacher and craftsman of his language.Philip Beidler was once a young combat commander in Vietnam.His gritty reflections, from the ground, of our generation's experience there, are, to me, the truest voice and clearest vision of that time and place.If you were there, Beidler rings true.If you love history, he rings true.If you love well written advocates of social justice, Beidler rings true.I was there and, like the author, continue to chew on what I witnessed and what it still means.I graduated from Cal in History in 1964.I just retired from teaching history, with a focus on social justice, to high school juniors and seniors.If I updated my bibliography for ANY reader interested in understanding this country's war through the experiences of its young participants AND the lessons of exporting war that this nation still hasn't learned, Beidler would be very near the top.Don't mean to oversell "Late Thoughts on an Old War" but Beidler hooked me with his chapter-long critique of the movie, "Platoon", compared with its genre.

Important Contribution to the Literature of the Vietnam War
Mr. Beidler uses his personal experiences along with his academic abilities to offer the reader a unique view of the Vietnam War. He suggests that we have created a myth about Vietnam and that we haven't learned any lessons about the limits of our abilities as a culture or government. We haven't faced up to the consequences of our actions in Vietnam.

What I really liked about this book is that Mr. Beidler didn't forget the participants. One chapter in particular, "How I flunked race in Vietnam", gave me a valuable insight into human behavior.

A Must Read, Especially Now
How quickly we forget. The "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" and Ted Sampley run John Kerry through the mill for his "betrayal" of the troops who served in Vietnam in his testimony in the Senate in 1971. Dr. Beidler reminds us that it wasn't the soldiers that were to blame for the atrocity that was the Vietnam War but the blind stupidity of the political and military leadership that led to, and kept us in, a war that we were never going to win. Read this and "They Marched Into Sunlight" to get a refresher on why things were they way they were in the late 60's and early 70's. I particularly appreciate Dr. Beildler's perspective on the totally superficial "sacrifices" of the American public in the current war. In speaking of the soldiers of this war he says, "Don't come home expecting anybody to remotely care". We are too busy on our cell phones. ... Read more

Product Description
"Bold. . . . The greatest pleasure the book offers is the often thought-provoking close reading of both familiar and long-forgotten movies andfiction of the Vietnam War era."
--The Journal of American History

"Beattie shows us how ideological strategies operate and, thereby, prepares us to outflank them in the future. The importance of his contribution to the study ofAmerican culture can hardly be overstated."
--Contemporary Sociology

". . . brilliantly shows how the war lost abroad was subsequently won at home."
--American Quarterly

At the height of the Vietnam War, American society was so severely fragmented that it seemed that Americans may never again share common concerns. The media and other commentators represented the impact of the war through a variety of rhetorical devices, most notably the emotionally charged metaphor of "the wound that will not heal." References in various contexts to veterans' attempts to find a "voice," and to bring the war "home" were also common. Gradually, an assured and resilient American self-image and powerful impressions of cultural collectivity transformed the Vietnam war into a device for maintaining national unity.Today, the war is portrayed as a healed wound, the once "silenced" veteran has found a voice, and the American home has accommodated the effects of Vietnam.The scar has healed, binding Americans into a union that denies the divisions, diversities, and differences exposed by the war.In this way, America is now "over" Vietnam.

In The Scar That Binds, Keith Beattie examines the central metaphors of the Vietnam war and their manifestations in American culture and life. Blending history and cultural criticism in a lucid style, this provocative book discusses an ideology of unity that has emerged through widespread rhetorical and cultural references to the war. A critique of this ideology reveals three dominant themes structured in a range of texts: the "wound," "the voice" of the Vietnam veteran, and "home." The analysis of each theme draws on a range of sources, including film, memoir, poetry, written and oral history, journalism, and political speeches.In contrast to studies concerned with representations of the war as a combat experience, The Scar That Binds opens and examines an unexplored critical space through a focus on the effects of the Vietnam War on American culture. The result is a highly original and compelling interpretation of the development of an ideology of unity in our culture. ... Read more

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In a probing look at the myths of American culture that led us into the Vietnam quagmire, Loren Baritz exposes our national illusions: the conviction of our moral supremacy, our assumption that Americans are more idealistic than other people, and our faith in a technology that supposedly makes us invincible. He also reveals how Vietnam changed American culture today, from the successes and failures of the Washington bureaucracy to the destruction of the traditional military code of honor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Excellent book for behind the scenes of Vietnam
A great book for an in-depth look at what went on in Washington and the influence of American culture in how we fought in Vietnam. Baritz thoroughly describes thestate of mind America was in at the time of the war and the greedy beauracrats in Washington. Baritz also focuses on the myths of American culture that led us into the war and the myths that made us think that winning was possible and inevitable. A false sense of hope about the war and cover-ups were planted in the American public. Overall, this book has changed my view on American culture and politics and the corruption that is never addressed to the public.

Review of Vietnam, Preview of Iraq
I read this book before the US invasion of Iraq after reading an article in 2002 by Philip Gold, a Seattle-area conservative, who spoke highly of it. He believed the US was going to end up repeating its mistakes in Vietnam, for similar reasons. He was right.

I'll list just one example: the myth that technology is a panacea, and a substitute for troops on the ground. Donald Rumsfeld appeared to believe that he had discovered a revolutionary breakthrough that would allow for an easy victory in Iraq, one no one had ever thought of before. In fact, he'd just fallen for the same exact myth as the planners of the Vietnam War, for the same reasons.

Numerous other comparisons can be made reading this book. It's not a moral critique of the war, but rather a chronicle of bureaucratic disaster, and a blueprint for what was to come.

Plus ca change . . . .Americans just don't get it
Every politician should read Loren Baritz's analysis of the delusional thinking that got us into the Vietnam quaqmire. It bears directly on how we got ourselves into the Iraq War.

Loren Baritz describes the complete ignorance of foreign cultures, the complete inability to predict consequences, of the presidents, politicians, and military commanders who dragged us into a no-win war with "north" Vietnam.In his preface Baritz says:

"The war presidents beieved in what they were doing. I have no doubt they were sincere. Victims of Cold War jitters, they meant to curtail the spread of communism. With deep-seated American idealism, they intended to engineer a more sanitary and more democratic Vietnam.LBJ desperately wanted to "win their hearts and minds," and Nixon described the war as a "noble cause."They wanted to save the Vietnamese, sometimes from themselves, always from their ideologically crazed brothers.Our sense of moral superiority to the rest of the world, our missionary compulsion, is a story as old as the settlement of America. . . Our commanders lusted for a massive conventional battle . . . [but] There was never a front line -- never any line at all -- and no territory to be won and held.The Vietcong looked exactly like our allies in South Vietnam, never appearing in uniform and easily blending into the village life of the countryside. . . . For the GI grunts in the field, it was a grisly nightmare.Think of the soldier "lucky" enough to have his laundry done by a sweet old woman who, after dark, changed into a Vietcong guerrilla, laying mines on the path to the mess hall."

Nothing has changed. We are still putting our GI's at unnecessary risk due to presidential delusions.We are still labeling our real enemies (Iraqi's, Saudi's, Pakistani's) as friends -- just to keep that oil flowing.And soon we will be importing thousands of so-called Green Zone Iraqi "friends" into the US when we cut and run.

It's fifty years after the Vietnam debacle, and Repubs and Dems are just as clueless as they ever were about the dangers implicit in anti-Western, anti-rule-of-law, cultures and value systems.Now our democracy-sloganeering president has put our soldiers into Iraq, as Nixon said about Vietnam, to "win their hearts and minds." But for the GI grunts, it's a nightmare even more surreal than Vietnam was:This time our clueless military commanders are not only inviting the enemy Shia into the Green Zone to do the GI's laundry and translation, this time they are forcing the naive, young GI's go on patrol with Shia gunmen, who could easily shoot them -- the infidels -- in the back at any moment and in good Islamic conscience. This time the oil-blinded leadership is TRAINING the enemy.

Backfire
John Sweet
Book review #3

Baritz, Loren. Back Fire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did. Baltimore: The John's Hopkins University Press, 1985.

Loren Baritz takes a look at the Vietnam War in a way that lets us understand why we decided to fight and why we fought the way we did. Unlike most surveys of the war that focus on the logistical elements and command decisions which explain what the war was Baritz explains why it was."To understand our present role in the world" Baritz explains, "we must understand the Vietnam debacle." (p.9)Indeed, if we are to learn anything from our mistakes, and virtually everyone now agrees that Vietnam was a mistake, it is essential to know why something happened and not just what happened. To explain why Vietnam happened the way it did Baritz proposes that there is "an inherent connection between war and culture [that is] present in all nations." In our case, Vietnam was fought the way it was because our culture left us no other way to fight it.
Baritz divides the book up into three parts. The first part, Tinder, explains why America decided to fight in Vietnam and the myths that forced us to make war half way around the globe with a people that we did not understand.The second part, Fire, explains how we fell into an ever deeper war in Vietnam and how our means of fighting determined how we fought and why we were unable to effectively combat a vastly inferior military force.The third part, Backfire, is the most telling part of the book for it presents an explanation of how our culture forced us to fight the way we did, why we ultimately lost, and why we are still making the same mistakes today.
In Tinder, Baritz convinces us that Americans firmly believe that we are the best. We are a "chosen people" inhabiting a "city on a hill" doing "Gods work" bringing a "Great Society to Asia."Such blatant solipsism is part of our entrenched American dogma. So ingrained is this self righteousness that we truly can not comprehend someone who does not wish to be like us. One GI put it simply "The Vietnamese are so stupid that they can't understand a great people were trying to help a weak people."So it was, as Baritz explains, that Gods Country went to Vietnam to save them.
Our almost total ignorance of the Vietnamese culture is now legendary but at the time it did not seem important.Our sense of righteousness and invincibility was so complete that we never even considered the possibility that we were the real enemy to the South Vietnamese. One of the greatest blunders of the Vietnam War was the refusal to see the indigenous forces of the South as the main target. Instead, we assumed that the North was behind our failures to win the hearts and minds of the "backwards" South Vietnamese.Baritz is careful to explain that all nations have myths about their own greatness, but it is when these myths of inherent superiority are combined with power that terrible things happen. As was the case for us in Vietnam. Indeed, Baritz's book is now routinely quoted to expose the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq in an attempt to put the brakes on what is turning out to be a similar debacle.
Our moral superiority has often been derived by our technical superiority according to Baritz.Our obsession with the power of technology is absolute. It has been, and is today, the firm belief of most Americans that technology is the answer for most problems. This dependency on technological solutions, according to Baritz, blinded us to the proper response in Vietnam which was counterinsurgency. To truly win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese, intelligence and human interaction, practiced on a national scale might have handed the US a victory. But such a strategy offered no stage to display our superior technology. Even when our use of technology was obviously not working the Army responded in a typically American way. "When something failed to work we did more of it."(p.233) While such insanity is self-evident today, at the time it was perversely logical to the American generals who were so caught up in their own myths that to do otherwise would be tantamount to admitting the entire American way of life was wrong.After reading Backfire the belief in American military strategy as an extension of what is essential about America is not such a slippery slope. Baritz is very convincing connecting American culture to the way we fight. We are a technological nation and, more than anyone, dream of winning wars by the push of a button. "Shock and Awe," "smart bombs," and "stealth" are all extensions of our desire to separate us from harm and have the wonders of American ingenuity save the day. In Vietnam, as well as in the war on terror, where there is no front line intelligence gained from good foot soldiers and not bigger and better missiles are the deciding factors in achieving victory.
If all of this is so clear now why do we continue to make the same mistakes? In the third part, Backfire, Baritz explains that we have no choice. We fight the way we do because our culture defines who we are and how we fight. As long as our culture remains the same we will continue to be more efficient in our fighting but no more effective. This is because we are prisoners of our faith in technology. In order to maintain a high tech society the functioning of government, business, and the military must reside in a bureaucracy. As Baritz explains "when the technological mind is turned to the problem of organizing human activity, the result is bureaucracy." (p.48)
Baritz demonetization of the effects of bureaucracy on the military is total. With clarity and logic he explains how the fighting of such a technological war necessitated the bureaucisation of the military and its tragic consequences. The most damning of the outcomes is the development of careerism within the officer corps. The shift of officers from "leaders to managers" created such hazards as a drop in morale, insubordination, lack of responsibility, lack of experience, and unimaginative tactics. When officers are working to "get ahead" the job takes precedence over the mission and the mission suffers as it did in Vietnam.
The combination of bureaucracy and technology in Vietnam led to the eventual, extreme conclusion in strategy, that of having no strategy; the body count. When killing becomes and end unto itself the morality of war breaks down quickly. War becomes cold and passionless. Baritz correctly finds fault with such thinking claiming that "passion is an appropriate response to war." Without passion and debate the bureaucratic ship will be on autopilot.Incidences such as My Lai are the tragic results.
Did we learn from Vietnam? Baritz claims that "one antidote for folly is experience" and the experiences of Vietnam should have cast our invincibility myth into the ashcan as well as our reliance on technology as a panacea. Yet, it seems that the lessons of history are nothing in comparison to the American Myth that we are a city on a hill. Ronald Reagan against the Soviets, Clinton against the third world and the Bush Doctrine of preventive strikes and the forced spread of democracy all have repeated some of the mistakes that we made in Vietnam.
Baritz concludes that "our power, complacency, rigidity, and ignorance have kept us from incorporating our Vietnam experience into the way we think about ourselves and the world." (p.349) To fight a different, more humane, more effective war, will require more than a change in the military structure but a change in American cultural thinking.Looking at the current global policy of the United States, this does seem likely to happen any time soon and so we will continue to fight the way we do: with a national myth that shows us that we are good, with technology that makes us strong, and a bureaucracy that gives us standard operating procedures. Unfortunately, it has proven not to be a winning combination.

Too bad it didn't get read by our leaders
I can't add to the description of the book, except to say that it's too bad more people haven't read it.Especially our leadership.It's horrendously important to recognize the failures that we're repeating in Iraq. ... Read more

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"One of the sharpest and most productive analyses of our contemporaneity and the place of cinema within it and of our new historical relations as spectators to the imaginary universe on the movie screen. This is a study that will be of intense interest to film theorists and historians, cultural critics, mass media analysts, and anyone concerned with the complicated place of culture in our world today."--Dana Polan, English and Film Studies, University of Pittsburgh How have modern advertising techniques, the widespread use of VCRs, conglomerate takeovers of studios and film archives, cable TV, and media coverage of the Vietnam war changed the ways we watch movies? And how, in turn, have those different habits and patterns of viewing changed the ways in which films address their viewers? Drawing on a wide variety of American and European films and on many theoretical models, Timothy Corrigan investigates what he calls "a cinema without walls," taking a close look at particular films in order to see how we watch them differently in the post-Vietnam era. He examines cult audiences, narrative structure, genre films (road movies, in particular), and contemporary politics as they engage new models of film making and viewing. He thus provides a rare, serious attempt to deal with contemporary movies. Corrigan discusses filmmakers from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, including Martin Scorsese, Raoul Ruiz, Michael Cimino, Alexander Kluge, Francis Ford Coppola, Stephen Frears, and Wim Wenders. He offers detailed analyses of films such as Platoon; Full Metal Jacket; 9-1/2 Weeks; The Singing Detective; Choose Me; After Hours; Badlands; The King of Comedy; Paris, Texas; and My Beautiful Laundrette. Orchestrating this diversity, Corrigan provides a critical basis for making sense of contemporary film culture and its major achievements. Timothy Corrigan is a professor of English and film at Temple University. He is the author of Writing about Film and New German Film: The Displaced Image, and editor of The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

That's Entertainment ... Theory!
3 1/2 stars

Corrigan shows the parallels, within the mergers-and-acquisitions movie business and within selected films themselves, to a megabuck, blockbuster economy, a fragmented, now mythical "audience," and the politics of celebrity. Though at times he lets himself be seduced by film theory and pomo jargon, Corrigan stays lucid for the most part, and has some interesting ideas about film, society, and their relationship over the past generation.

That's Entertainment ... Theory!
3 1/2 stars

Corrigan shows the parallels, within the mergers-and-acquisitions movie business and within selected films themselves, to a megabuck, blockbuster economy, a fragmented, now mythical "audience," and the politics of celebrity. Though at times he lets himself be seduced by film theory and pomo jargon, Corrigan stays lucid for the most part, and has some interesting ideas about film, society, and their relationship over the past generation. ... Read more