Download or read book The American War in Contemporary Vietnam written by Christina Schwenkel and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-13 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christina Schwenkel's absorbing study explores how the "American War" is remembered and commemorated in Vietnam today -- in official and unofficial histories and in everyday life. Schwenkel analyzes visual representations found in monuments and martyrs' cemeteries, museums, photography and art exhibits, battlefield tours, and related sites of "trauma tourism." In these transnational spaces, American and Vietnamese memories of the war intersect in ways profoundly shaped by global economic liberalization and the return of American citizens as tourists, pilgrims, and philanthropists.

Download or read book Performing Remembering written by Rivka Syd Eisner and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-13 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the performances and politics of memory among a group of women war veterans in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Through ethnographic, oral history-based research, it connects the veterans’ wartime histories, memory politics, performance practices, recollections of imprisonment and torture, and social activism with broader questions of how to understand and attend to continuing transgenerational violence and trauma. With an extensive introduction and subsequent chapters devoted to in-depth analysis of four women’s remarkable life stories, the book explores the performance and performativity of culture; ethnographic oral history practice; personal, collective, and (trans)cultural memory; and the politics of postwar trauma, witnessing, and redress. Through the veterans’ dynamic practices of prospective remembering, 'pain-taking', and enduring optimism, it offers new insights into matrices of performance vital to the shared work of social transformation. It will appeal to readers interested in performance studies, memory studies, gender studies, Vietnamese studies, and oral history.

Download or read book Nothing Ever Dies written by Viet Thanh Nguyen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, National Book Award in Nonfiction A New York Times Book Review “The Year in Reading” Selection All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War—a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations. “[A] gorgeous, multifaceted examination of the war Americans call the Vietnam War—and which Vietnamese call the American War...As a writer, [Nguyen] brings every conceivable gift—wisdom, wit, compassion, curiosity—to the impossible yet crucial work of arriving at what he calls ‘a just memory’ of this war.” —Kate Tuttle, Los Angeles Times “In Nothing Ever Dies, his unusually thoughtful consideration of war, self-deception and forgiveness, Viet Thanh Nguyen penetrates deeply into memories of the Vietnamese war...[An] important book, which hits hard at self-serving myths.” —Jonathan Mirsky, Literary Review “Ultimately, Nguyen’s lucid, arresting, and richly sourced inquiry, in the mode of Susan Sontag and W. G. Sebald, is a call for true and just stories of war and its perpetual legacy.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

Download or read book In Country written by John Prados and published by Ivan R. Dee Publisher. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In an invaluable corrective, John Prados, one of our leading interpreters of the Vietnam War, opens a window into the visceral firsthand experiences of those on the ground in Vietnam. His carefully chosen and thoughtfully introduced anthology gathers the voices--in narrative and poetry--of men and women; Americans and Vietnamese (both of the North and South); officers and enlisted men. All of the selections feature individuals' experiences of war or witnessing specific events, and the realities of being caught up in them."--Publisher description.

Download or read book Remembering Heaven s Face written by John Balaban and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author recounts his years in Vietnam as a conscientious objector, serving as a teacher and a rescue worker for an organization that sent children with war injuries to the United States.

Download or read book The Country of Memory written by Hue-Tam Ho Tai and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-10 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hue-Tam Ho Tai's masterful collection of essays that explore how the past is being remade in contemporary Vietnam constitutes a welcome addition to the study of the larger problem of engineering memory, especially in political cultures where the identity of the nation-state is in a considerable state of flux . . .. This book also suggests that the 'commemorative fever' that is sweeping Vietnam is about more than Vietnam's history. It also has a great deal to do with the problems premodern cultures presented to those who promoted the creation of contemporary states. In this regard both Vietnam and this book offer all scholars of nationalism and remembering in the West a fascinating perspective on their own nations."—John Bodnar, Chancellors' Professor of History at Indiana University, from the Foreword

Download or read book Carried to the Wall written by Kristin Ann Hass and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On May 9, 1990, a bottle of Jack Daniels, a ring with letter, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, a baseball, a photo album, an ace of spades, and a pie were some of the objects left at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. For Kristin Hass, this eclectic sampling represents an attempt by ordinary Americans to come to terms with a multitude of unnamed losses as well as to take part in the ongoing debate of how this war should be remembered. Hass explores the restless memory of the Vietnam War and an American public still grappling with its commemoration. In doing so it considers the ways Americans have struggled to renegotiate the meanings of national identity, patriotism, community, and the place of the soldier, in the aftermath of a war that ruptured the ways in which all of these things have been traditionally defined. Hass contextualizes her study of this phenomenon within the history of American funerary traditions (in particular non-Anglo traditions in which material offerings are common), the history of war memorials, and the changing symbolic meaning of war. Her evocative analysis of the site itself illustrates and enriches her larger theses regarding the creation of public memory and the problem of remembering war and the resulting causalities—in this case not only 58,000 soldiers, but also conceptions of masculinity, patriotism, and working-class pride and idealism.

Download or read book Boundaries written by Maya Lin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned artist and architect Maya Lin's visual and verbal sketchbook—a unique view into her artwork and philosophy. Walking through this parklike area, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth -- a long, polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. Approaching the memorial, the ground slopes gently downward, and the low walls emerging on either side, growing out of the earth, extend and converge at a point below and ahead. Walking into the grassy site contained by the walls of this memorial, we can barely make out the carved names upon the memorial's walls. These names, seemingly infinite in number, convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole.... So begins the competition entry submitted in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. -- subsequently called "as moving and awesome and popular a piece of memorial architecture as exists anywhere in the world." Its creator, Maya Lin, has been nothing less than world famous ever since. From the explicitly political to the un-ashamedly literary to the completely abstract, her simple and powerful sculpture -- the Rockefeller Foundation sculpture, the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial, the Yale Women's Table, Wave Field -- her architecture, including The Museum for African Art and the Norton residence, and her protean design talents have defined her as one of the most gifted creative geniuses of the age. Boundaries is her first book: an eloquent visual/verbal sketchbook produced with the same inspiration and attention to detail as any of her other artworks. Like her environmental sculptures, it is a site, but one which exists at a remove so that it may comment on the personal and artistic elements that make up those works. In it, sketches, photographs, workbook entries, and original designs are held together by a deeply personal text. Boundaries is a powerful literary and visual statement by "a leading public artist" (Holland Carter). It is itself a unique work of art.

Download or read book Tangled Memories written by Marita Sturken and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1997-02-28 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing the ways U.S. culture has been formed and transformed in the 80s and 90s by its response to the Vietnam War and the AIDS epidemic, Marita Sturken argues that each has disrupted our conventional notions of community, nation, consensus, and "American culture." She examines the relationship of camera images to the production of cultural memory, the mixing of fantasy and reenactment in memory, the role of trauma and survivors in creating cultural comfort, and how discourses of healing can smooth over the tensions of political events. Sturken's discussion encompasses a brilliant comparison of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the AIDS Quilt; her profound reading of the Memorial as a national wailing wall—one whose emphasis on the veterans and war dead has allowed the discourse of heroes, sacrifice, and honor to resurface at the same time that it is an implicit condemnation of war—is particularly compelling. The book also includes discussions of the Kennedy assassination, the Persian Gulf War, the Challenger explosion, and the Rodney King beating. While debunking the image of the United States as a culture of amnesia, Sturken also shows how remembering itself is a form of forgetting, and how exclusion is a vital part of memory formation.

Download or read book Our Year of War written by Daniel P. Bolger and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two brothers -- Chuck and Tom Hagel -- who went to war in Vietnam, fought in the same unit, and saved each other's life. They disagreed about the war, but they fought it together. 1968. America was divided. Flag-draped caskets came home by the thousands. Riots ravaged our cities. Assassins shot our political leaders. Black fought white, young fought old, fathers fought sons. And it was the year that two brothers from Nebraska went to war. In Vietnam, Chuck and Tom Hagel served side by side in the same rifle platoon. Together they fought in the Mekong Delta, battled snipers in Saigon, chased the enemy through the jungle, and each saved the other's life under fire. But when their one-year tour was over, these two brothers came home side-by-side but no longer in step -- one supporting the war, the other hating it. Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his brother Tom epitomized the best, and withstood the worst, of the most tumultuous, shocking, and consequential year in the last half-century. Following the brothers' paths from the prairie heartland through a war on the far side of the world and back to a divided America, Our Year of War tells the story of two brothers at war -- a gritty, poignant, and resonant story of a family and a nation divided yet still united.

Download or read book Looking Back on the Vietnam War written by Brenda M. Boyle and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than forty years have passed since the official end of the Vietnam War, yet the war’s legacies endure. Its history and iconography still provide fodder for film and fiction, communities of war refugees have spawned a wide Vietnamese diaspora, and the United States military remains embroiled in unwinnable wars with eerie echoes of Vietnam. Looking Back on the Vietnam War brings together scholars from a broad variety of disciplines, who offer fresh insights on the war’s psychological, economic, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. Each essay examines a different facet of the war, from its representation in Marvel comic books to the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers exposed to Agent Orange. By putting these pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies. Though they come from diverse scholarly backgrounds, ranging from anthropology to film studies, the contributors are united in their commitment to original research. Whether exploring rare archives or engaging in extensive interviews, they voice perspectives that have been excluded from standard historical accounts. Looking Back on the Vietnam War thus embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why.

Download or read book A Rift in the Earth written by James Reston and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Distinguished and Bestselling Historian and Army Veteran Revisits the Culture War that Raged around the Selection of Maya Lin's Design for the Vietnam Memorial A Rift in the Earth tells the remarkable story of the ferocious “art war” that raged between 1979 and 1984 over what kind of memorial should be built to honor the men and women who died in the Vietnam War. The story intertwines art, politics, historical memory, patriotism, racism, and a fascinating set of characters, from those who fought in the conflict and those who resisted it to politicians at the highest level. At its center are two enduring figures: Maya Lin, a young, Asian-American architecture student at Yale whose abstract design won the international competition but triggered a fierce backlash among powerful figures; and Frederick Hart, an innovative sculptor of humble origins on the cusp of stardom. James Reston, Jr., a veteran who lost a close friend in the war and has written incisively about the conflict's bitter aftermath, explores how the debate reignited passions around Vietnam long after the war’s end and raised questions about how best to honor those who fought and sacrificed in an ill-advised war. Richly illustrated with photographs from the era and design entries from the memorial competition, A Rift in the Earth is timed to appear alongside Ken Burns's eagerly anticipated PBS documentary, The Vietnam War. “The memorial appears as a rift in the earth, a long polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth."—Maya Lin "I see the wall as a kind of ocean, a sea of sacrifice. . . . I place these figures upon the shore of that sea." —Frederick Hart

Download or read book No Shining Armor written by Otto J. Lehrack and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the Vietnam War, as seen by the American PFCs, sergeants and platoon leaders in the rivers and jungles and trenches. Into their stories, Lehrack has woven a narrative that explains the events they describe and places them into both a historical and a political context.

Download or read book The Refugees written by Viet Thanh Nguyen and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Beautiful and heartrending” fiction set in Vietnam and America from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker) In these powerful stories, written over a period of twenty years and set in both Vietnam and America, Viet Thanh Nguyen paints a vivid portrait of the experiences of people leading lives between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. This incisive collection by the National Book Award finalist and celebrated author of The Committed gives voice to the hopes and expectations of people making life-changing decisions to leave one country for another, and the rifts in identity, loyalties, romantic relationships, and family that accompany relocation. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her with a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of migration. “Terrific.” —Chicago Tribune “An important and incisive book.” —The Washington Post “An urgent, wonderful collection.” —NPR

Download or read book Vietnam written by Howard Zinn and published by eBookIt.com. This book was released on 2012-11 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zinn's compelling case against the Vietnam War, now with a new introduction. Of the many books that challenged the Vietnam War, Howard Zinn's stands out as one of the best--and most influential. It helped sparked national debate on the war. It includes a powerful speech written by Zinn that President Johnson should have given to lay out the case for ending the war.

Download or read book Mythologizing the Vietnam War written by Jennifer Good and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vietnam War is evolving from contemporary memory into history. Fifty years on, it still serves as a benchmark in the history of war reporting and in the representation of conflict in popular culture and historical memory. However, as contemporary culture tries to come to terms with the events and their political, psychological and cultural implications, the â ~realâ (TM) Vietnam War has been appropriated and changed into a set of mythologies which implicate American and Vietnamese national identities specifically, and ideas of modern conflict more broadly, particularly in shaping the mediation of the twenty-first century â ~War on Terrorâ (TM). This collection of interdisciplinary critical essays explores the cultural legacies of the US involvement in South East Asia, considering this process of â ~mythologisingâ (TM) through the lenses of visual media and tracing the warâ (TM)s evolution from contemporary reportage to subsequent interpretation and consumption. It reassesses the role of visual media in covering and remembering the war, its memorialisation, mediation and memory. The origin of this collection of essays was an international conference, titled â oeConsidering Vietnamâ , held at the Imperial War Museum, London, in February 2012, co-organised by the museum and the University of the Arts London Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC).

Download or read book Requiem written by Horst Faas and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the French Indochina war of the fifties and the fall of Phnom Penn and Saigon in 1975, 134 photographers from different nations were killed. Horst Faas, two-times Pullitzer Prize winner and Chief Photographer for The Associated Press in Saigon at the height of the war, and Tim Page, another veteran who had been badly wounded, have gathered many thousands of photos from the Western agencies and from archives in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. These have now been assembled to form both a monument to the dead and a record of the most terrifying war photography ever taken. Never again will the media have the kind of access to the war zone that was offered to the photographers in Vietnam. In many cases the photographers tried to get as close as possible, then paid the price.