2009_Biggs_Americans_AnGiang.pdf

Itinerario, 2003

Journal of Asian Studies 79(3), 2020

2021

This book analyzes why Indians have been made invisible in Vietnamese society and historiography. It argues that their invisibilization originates in the formulaic metaphor Vietnamese nation-makers have used to portray Indians in their quest for national sovereignty and socialism. The book presents a complex view on colonial legacies in Vietnam, which suggests that Vietnamese nation-makers associate Indians with colonialism and capitalism, ultimately viewed as "non-socialist" and "non-hegemonic" state structures. Furthermore, the book demonstrates how Vietnamese nation-makers achieve the overriding socialist and independent goal of historically differing Indians from Vietnamese nationalisms whilst simultaneously making them invisible. In addition to primary Vietnamese texts, which demonstrate the performativity of language and the Vietnamese traditional belief in writing as a sharp weapon for national and class struggles, the author utilizes interviews with Indians and Vietnamese authorities in charge of managing the Indian population. Bringing to the surface the ways through which Vietnamese intellectuals have invisibilized the Indians for the sake of the visibility of national hegemony and prosperity, this book will be of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian Studies and South Asian Studies, Vietnam Studies, including nation-building, literature, and language.

Journal of Asian Studies, 2022

Communist Party Congress in 2016, when Phú Trọng ousted Osius's preferred negotiating partner, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng. Osius provides a compelling account of progress on remediation of Agent Orange, describing how the United States moved from commitments on cleanup of dioxin hotspots to increased disability assistance. He arguably contributed to LGBTQ rights in Vietnam through his own example as an out gay ambassador, and he makes a convincing case that his intervention helped preserve Son Doong cave in Quảng Bình Province. By contrast, his modest efforts to rehabilitate a former South Vietnamese cemetery in Biên Hòa are unlikely to assuage the overseas Vietnamese whom Osius terms "the key to reconciliation" (p. 103). Finally, Osius defends his actions after the 2016 US election, when he remained in his post to maintain momentum in US-Vietnamese ties while preparing to resign "if I was asked to implement policies I could not support" (p. 218). As a self-styled "remonstrating official" (p. 258), Osius opposed the incoming administration's practice of deporting Vietnamese immigrants who had been convicted of crimes, contrary to an agreement reached as part of normalization of relations in 1995. Osius's courageous stance slowed down deportations and raised public concern. In a departure from normal diplomatic practice, Nothing Is Impossible is not shy about criticizing the racist jokes and "scent of corruption" (p. 241) attached to the former US president and his coterie. Yet there is no mention of allegations of corruption in the circle around former Vietnamese prime minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, whom Osius "liked" (p. 193) and praises as "one of the most influential leaders in Viet Nam's modern history" (p. 164). In recounting the episode of Vietnamese activists and dissidents prevented from meeting with President Obama in May 2016, Osius accepts part of his own naivete about the Vietnamese system, but he remains credulous that the "linkage between Vietnam's TPP ambitions and its human rights record seemed to be working" (p. 172). The belief that "using the leverage that trade provides" can support human rights (p. 263) flies in the face of most evidence. This pro-corporate agenda (Osius worked for Google Asia after leaving the Foreign Service and now leads the US-ASEAN Business Council) sits uneasily with Osius's progressive positions on war legacies, marriage equality, and immigration. Nothing Is Impossible offers the best available summary to date of the US-Vietnamese trajectory toward becoming "allies and partners" (p. 243). While the two countries are indeed partners in many aspects, they are not yet full allies. Osius's narrative shows the limits and the promise of the relationship. When faced with adversity, Osius recalls John Kerry's admonishment, "Don't burn bridges" (p. 201)-positive advice that this memoir applies in diplomacy and in life.

Journal of Cold War Studies

Journal of Cold War Studies 4.1 (2002) 99-101 Michael Latham's book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the Kennedy years. Since the mid-1990s this literature seems to be finally emerging from the orthodox-revisionist dilemma and entering its own postrevisionist stage, allowing issues to be debated in a more detached, dispassionate way. John F. Kennedy him- self is no longer the object of a fervid attachment or of an equally fervid denigration. Latham's book combines cultural and diplomatic history in highlighting the pervasiveness of modernization theories in the decision-making process of the early 1960s. It thus gives us a valuable insight into the mindset of the "best and the brightest," vividly re-creating the sense of omnipotence that was so typical of the Kennedy team. Latham sets out to show not only how deeply the various modernization theories shaped and affected the foreign policy-making process of the Kennedy administration, but also how ...

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2020

Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 2013

is well known to students of modern Vietnam through his magisterial and widely praised two-volume work The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975 (2003). In that work, Elliott argued that the Viet Minh movement gained a moral advantage with the August Revolution of 1945 that the non-Communist regimes and their backers were never able to cope up with in the following three decades. So, to what extent has the allure of revolutionary glory been able to maintain itself until the present time? This is part of the issue that Elliott addresses in Changing Worlds. His new investigation commences more or less when the former one stopped, in about 1975, with the bulk of the work dealing with the years 1989-2006. As is well known, these years saw a number of decisions and policy changes that paved the way for an increasing engagement with the outside world including the old enemies U.S. and China, and a restructuring of the economy of the country. It is important to note what the book is not. Anyone expecting a broad depiction of social and economic changes during the period in question will be disappointed. Also, it is not a study of the Vietnamese political system per se. Comparative aspects are limited in spite of the obvious parallels with the post-Maoist Chinese case. The task that Elliott has set upon himself is rather mapping the emergence of a new thinking among the elite groups, changes in political intent, and the dynamics of the political system. How did the once unthinkable become mainstream within a decade and a half ? Divergent views of key political issues among the elite are analysed in circumstantial detail, in particular those linked to security and foreign policy. Given the secretive nature of the Marxist state, archival work is obviously off-limit, and Elliott's analysis is based upon interviews, media stuff and other printed materials in English and Vietnamese. As he himself admits towards the end of the book, the methodology entails numerous potential pitfalls. Are the statements emanating from the political elite sincere or merely rhetoric? Are they expressions of a true change of mind or just afterthe-fact conventions? Elliott dares not give a definite answer, although he points to a number of factors in recent history that have encouraged

H-Diplo, 2024

is an ambitious work which seeks to comprehensively and systematically examine the cultural trauma and memory discourses of what the authors call the "American-Vietnamese War." 1 Building on the contemporary sociological works of Jeffery Alexander, Jeffrey Olick, and Eviatar Zerubavel, 2 as well as classic sociological studies by Maurice Halbwachs, Karl Manheim, Pierre Nora, the three authors of this volume contribute the concept of "arenas of memory" to the scholarship on collective memory. 3 Adapting Nora's concept of lieux de memoire, the authors emphasize the social and discursive spaces within which memory narratives are articulated, circulated, and contested. 4 A sophisticated analytical tool, "arenas of memory" is deployed by the authors as a "heuristic device…[which] demarcate[s] the social spaces where different narratives of collective memory interact" (24). 5 Addressing the cultural trauma of one of the most controversial and contested military conflict in recent history, the chapters, which are written by the individual authors, rightly emphasize the conflicting and politicized nature of memory and how different social actors and groups organize and mobilize to advance particular interpretations and claims regarding the meaning and significance of the war. Extensive in scope and design, the book centers on the three main belligerents of the conflict, namely the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam during the war years, subsequently the Socialist Republic of Vietnam), the United States, and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN or South Vietnam during the war years, subsequently Vietnamese Americans). 1 I quote the authors' term "American-Vietnamese War" throughout this work as it is a novel term. The Vietnam War (1963-1975) has been referred to as the Second Indochina War. In the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, it is commonly known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ ("Resistance War against America").

The paper enters into conversation with James C. Scott's study on High Modernism and his critique to scientism and utopian social engineering. In particular, it engages with the question How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed, resulting in tragic unforeseen consequences. My interest here is oriented towards three interrelated areas regarding: a. the role of intellectuals and experts in the politics of modernization and in the various, capitalist or socialist, development programs; b. an interest in reflexivity in order to problematize the 'theory-praxis unity' by interjecting between the framework of theory production and the field of its application the 'concept' of metis, namely the craft of translation-interpretation of ideas into practice; c. an inquiry whether and how the critique of High Modernism could be appropriated to approach the problem of Greek modernity, that is the narratives of failed modernization. I argue that we could possibly exempt history from crude teleological accounts if we historicize the role of intellectuals and experts in the historical process by focusing not merely on their ideas and grand visions-i.e. on what they failed to achieve-but also on what they actually did, i.e. on the specific way they planned and attempted institutional modernization.