Download or read book Vietnam and the Cold War 1945 1954 written by John Pike and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 823 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A forensic study of Vietnam's war, imperial history and international relations in the years following the Second World War. A forensic study of war, imperial history and international relations, following the Second World War and leading into the Cold War and defeat of Western imperialism in Asia. And above all, the story of the pivotal battle and French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. It shows France's revanchist attempt to regain imperial 'glory' in her former Asian empire following humiliation in the Second World War - defeat and Vichy. The effort was spurred by de Galle's chauvinism and desire to recover France’s honour and reputation, after so many humiliations by friend and foe. The Communist led Vietminh, were guided to victory by ruthless revolutionary Ho Chi Min - far from the attractive 'Uncle Ho' who is revered as a communist saint in contrast to louche playboy emperor Bao Dai – and the very able General Giap. Communist strength in rural Vietnam society - the Vietminh represented a nation in arms – was backed by supplies from Communist China and the Soviet Union. It was an existential struggle on the French side - the end of cafe society, and the gravy train for planters, officials, the military, and politicians. Military matters including General Giap’s strategy and tactics are analyzed in detail, but it was a 'soldiers' war', told at ground-level, and readers will feel the heat and fear of battle, be shocked at war crimes, and intrigued by the tales of Graham Greene et al. The global importance was not lost on the powers following exhaustion from world war and in the shadow of the Cold War. All great leaders were involved, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Khruschev, Chou En-Lai and Mao Zedong, Under the shadow of the A bomb, a negotiated peace and first detent of the Cold War would end in the sumptuous salons of Geneva.
Download or read book Hanoi s Road to the Vietnam War 1954 1965 written by Pierre Asselin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Using new and largely inaccessible Vietnamese sources as well as French, British, Canadian and American archives, Pierre Asselin sheds valuable light on Hanoi's path to war. Step by step the narrative makes Hanoi's revolutionary strategy from the end of the French Indochina War to the start of the Anti-American Resistance Struggle for Reunification and National Salvation (the Vietnam War) transparent. The book reveals how North Vietnamese leaders moved from a cautious policy emphasizing nonviolent political and diplomatic struggle to a far riskier pursuit of military victory"--
Download or read book Mass Mobilization in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam 1945 1960 written by Alec Holcombe and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immediately after its founding by Hồ Chí Minh in September 1945, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) faced challenges from rival Vietnamese political organizations and from a France determined to rebuild her empire after the humiliations of WWII. Hồ, with strategic genius, courageous maneuver, and good fortune, was able to delay full-scale war with France for sixteen months in the northern half of the country. This was enough time for his Communist Party, under the cover of its Vietminh front organization, to neutralize domestic rivals and install the rough framework of an independent state. That fledgling state became a weapon of war when the DRV and France finally came to blows in Hanoi during December of 1946, marking the official beginning of the First Indochina War. With few economic resources at their disposal, Hồ and his comrades needed to mobilize an enormous and free contribution in manpower and rice from DRV-controlled regions. Extracting that contribution during the war’s early days was primarily a matter of patriotic exhortation. By the early 1950s, however, the infusion of weapons from the United States, the Soviet Union, and China had turned the Indochina conflict into a “total war.” Hunger, exhaustion, and violence, along with the conflict’s growing political complexity, challenged the DRV leaders’ mobilization efforts, forcing patriotic appeals to be supplemented with coercion and terror. This trend reached its revolutionary climax in late 1952 when Hồ, under strong pressure from Stalin and Mao, agreed to carry out radical land reform in DRV-controlled areas of northern Vietnam. The regime’s 1954 victory over the French at Điện Biên Phủ, the return of peace, and the division of the country into North and South did not slow this process of socialist transformation. Over the next six years (1954–1960), the DRV’s Communist leaders raced through land reform and agricultural collectivization with a relentless sense of urgency. Mass Mobilization in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945–1960 explores the way the exigencies of war, the dreams of Marxist-Leninist ideology, and the pressures of the Cold War environment combined with pride and patriotism to drive totalitarian state formation in northern Vietnam.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War 1945 1954 written by Christopher E. Goscha and published by . This book was released on 2015-09 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first historical dictionary in English of the Indochina War provides the most comprehensive account to date of one of the most important conflicts of the twentieth century. Over 1,600 entries offer in-depth, expert coverage of the war in all its dimensions. Christopher Goscha adopts a path-breaking dual international and interdisciplinary approach. Thus readers will not only find information on politics and military campaigns; they will also discover the remarkable impact this war had on intellectual, social, cultural, economic, and artistic domains in France, Indochina, and elsewhere. Indeed, rather than limiting the dictionary to the French and their Vietnamese adversaries, Goscha explores the internationalization of this conflict from its beginning in September 1945 at Ba Dinh square in Hanoi to its end around the Cold War conference table in Geneva in July 1954, also making it clear that a myriad of non-communist Vietnamese, Lao, and Cambodian nationalists were deeply involved in this war and its outcome. In addition to its 1,600 entries, the dictionary contains a succinct historical introduction, selected bibliography, maps, illustrations, and tables. A massive work of outstanding scholarly quality and lasting value, this is a reference tool that will be invaluable for researchers, students, and anyone else hoping to understand the complexity of this tragic conflict.
Download or read book The First Mistake written by J. Edward Lee and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When writing about the Vietnam War, most scholars focus on the 1960s. But in this hard-hitting analysis, eminent historian Dr. J. Edward Lee focuses instead on the key period of 1945 to 1954, the first decade of America's Vietnam War experience. He suggests that as the Cold War commenced in 1945, America failed to remember our nation's own revolutionary experience and the importance of independence and self-determination, missing an opportunity to build a positive relationship with Ho Chi Minh when we aided the return of French colonialism instead of working with him to achieve his country's independence from imperialist France. A must-read for university classes studying the 20th century, veterans groups, and anyone interested in the gritty history of the Vietnam War.
Download or read book Encyclopaedia Britannica written by Hugh Chisholm and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 1090 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.
Download or read book Lyndon Johnson s War written by Michael H. Hunt and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996-08-31 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael H. Hunt uses newly available sources from both American and Vietnamese archives to reevaluate how and why the war started and then escalated. He examines the ideological, strategic, political, and institutional pressures that in the 1950s propelled the Truman and Eisenhower administrations toward intervention in Indochina; the reasons why Kennedy's and Johnson's policymakers believed that a limited war could be fought there.
Download or read book The First Vietnam War written by Mark Atwood Lawrence and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2007-02-28 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the conflict between Vietnamese nationalists and French colonial rulers erupt into a major Cold War struggle between communism and Western liberalism? To understand the course of the Vietnam wars, it is essential to explore the connections between events within Vietnam and global geopolitical currents in the decade after the Second World War. In this illuminating work, leading scholars examine various dimensions of the struggle between France and Vietnamese revolutionaries that began in 1945 and reached its climax at Dien Bien Phu. Several essays break new ground in the study of the Vietnamese revolution and the establishment of the political and military apparatus that successfully challenged both France and the United States. Other essays explore the roles of China, France, Great Britain, and the United States, all of which contributed to the transformation of the conflict from a colonial skirmish to a Cold War crisis. Taken together, the essays enable us to understand the origins of the later American war in Indochina by positioning Vietnam at the center of the grand clash between East and West and North and South in the middle years of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Valley of Death written by Ted Morgan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-02-23 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize–winning author Ted Morgan has now written a rich and definitive account of the fateful battle that ended French rule in Indochina—and led inexorably to America’s Vietnam War. Dien Bien Phu was a remote valley on the border of Laos along a simple rural trade route. But it would also be where a great European power fell to an underestimated insurgent army and lost control of a crucial colony. Valley of Death is the untold story of the 1954 battle that, in six weeks, changed the course of history. A veteran of the French Army, Ted Morgan has made use of exclusive firsthand reports to create the most complete and dramatic telling of the conflict ever written. Here is the history of the Vietminh liberation movement’s rebellion against French occupation after World War II and its growth as an adversary, eventually backed by Communist China. Here too is the ill-fated French plan to build a base in Dien Bien Phu and draw the Vietminh into a debilitating defeat—which instead led to the Europeans being encircled in the surrounding hills, besieged by heavy artillery, overrun, and defeated. Making expert use of recently unearthed or released information, Morgan reveals the inner workings of the American effort to aid France, with Eisenhower secretly disdainful of the French effort and prophetically worried that “no military victory was possible in that type of theater.” Morgan paints indelible portraits of all the major players, from Henri Navarre, head of the French Union forces, a rigid professional unprepared for an enemy fortified by rice carried on bicycles, to his commander, General Christian de Castries, a privileged, miscast cavalry officer, and General Vo Nguyen Giap, a master of guerrilla warfare working out of a one-room hut on the side of a hill. Most devastatingly, Morgan sets the stage for the Vietnam quagmire that was to come. Superbly researched and powerfully written, Valley of Death is the crowning achievement of an author whose work has always been as compulsively readable as it is important.
Download or read book The OSS and Ho Chi Minh written by Dixee Bartholomew-Feis and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2006-05-12 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some will be shocked to find out that the United States and Ho Chi Minh, our nemesis for much of the Vietnam War, were once allies. Indeed, during the last year of World War II, American spies in Indochina found themselves working closely with Ho Chi Minh and other anti-colonial factions-compelled by circumstances to fight together against the Japanese. Dixee Bartholomew-Feis reveals how this relationship emerged and operated and how it impacted Vietnam's struggle for independence. The men of General William Donovan's newly-formed Office of Strategic Services closely collaborated with communist groups in both Europe and Asia against the Axis enemies. In Vietnam, this meant that OSS officers worked with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, whose ultimate aim was to rid the region of all imperialist powers, not just the Japanese. Ho, for his part, did whatever he could to encourage the OSS's negative view of the French, who were desperate to regain their colony. Revealing details not previously known about their covert operations, Bartholomew-Feis chronicles the exploits of these allies as they developed their network of informants, sabotaged the Japanese occupation's infrastructure, conducted guerrilla operations, and searched for downed American fliers and Allied POWs. Although the OSS did not bring Ho Chi Minh to power, Bartholomew-Feis shows that its apparent support for the Viet Minh played a significant symbolic role in helping them fill the power vacuum left in the wake of Japan's surrender. Her study also hints that, had America continued to champion the anti-colonials and their quest for independence, rather than caving in to the French, we might have been spared our long and very lethal war in Vietnam. Based partly on interviews with surviving OSS agents who served in Vietnam, Bartholomew-Feis's engaging narrative and compelling insights speak to the yearnings of an oppressed people-and remind us that history does indeed make strange bedfellows.
Download or read book Vietnam and the Cold War 1945 1954 written by John Pike and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A forensic study of Vietnam's war, imperial history and international relations in the years following the Second World War. A forensic study of war, imperial history and international relations, following the Second World War and leading into the Cold War and defeat of Western imperialism in Asia. And above all, the story of the pivotal battle and French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. It shows France's revanchist attempt to regain imperial 'glory' in her former Asian empire following humiliation in the Second World War - defeat and Vichy. The effort was spurred by de Galle's chauvinism and desire to recover France’s honour and reputation, after so many humiliations by friend and foe. The Communist led Vietminh, were guided to victory by ruthless revolutionary Ho Chi Min - far from the attractive 'Uncle Ho' who is revered as a communist saint in contrast to louche playboy emperor Bao Dai – and the very able General Giap. Communist strength in rural Vietnam society - the Vietminh represented a nation in arms – was backed by supplies from Communist China and the Soviet Union. It was an existential struggle on the French side - the end of cafe society, and the gravy train for planters, officials, the military, and politicians. Military matters including General Giap’s strategy and tactics are analyzed in detail, but it was a 'soldiers' war', told at ground-level, and readers will feel the heat and fear of battle, be shocked at war crimes, and intrigued by the tales of Graham Greene et al. The global importance was not lost on the powers following exhaustion from world war and in the shadow of the Cold War. All great leaders were involved, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Khruschev, Chou En-Lai and Mao Zedong, Under the shadow of the A bomb, a negotiated peace and first detent of the Cold War would end in the sumptuous salons of Geneva.
Download or read book China and the First Vietnam War 1947 54 written by Laura M. Calkins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book charts the development of the First Vietnam War – the war between the Vietnamese Communists (the Viet Minh) and the French colonial power – considering especially how relations between the Viet Minh and the Chinese Communists had a profound impact on the course of the war. It shows how the Chinese provided finance, training and weapons to the Viet Minh, but how differences about strategy emerged, particularly when China became involved in the Korean War and the subsequent peace negotiations, when the need to placate the United States and to prevent US military involvement in Southeast Asia became a key concern for the Chinese. The book shows how the Viet Minh strategy of all-out war in the north and limited guerrilla warfare in the south developed from this situation, and how the war then unfolded.
Download or read book The Road to Dien Bien Phu written by Christopher Goscha and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-15 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multifaceted history of Ho Chi Minh’s climactic victory over French colonial might that foreshadowed America’s experience in Vietnam On May 7, 1954, when the bullets stopped and the air stilled in Dien Bien Phu, there was no doubt that Vietnam could fight a mighty colonial power and win. After nearly a decade of struggle, a nation forged in the crucible of war had achieved a victory undreamed of by any other national liberation movement. The Road to Dien Bien Phu tells the story of how Ho Chi Minh turned a ragtag guerrilla army into a modern fighting force capable of bringing down the formidable French army. Taking readers from the outbreak of fighting in 1945 to the epic battle at Dien Bien Phu, Christopher Goscha shows how Ho transformed Vietnam from a decentralized guerrilla state based in the countryside to a single-party communist state shaped by a specific form of “War Communism.” Goscha discusses how the Vietnamese operated both states through economics, trade, policing, information gathering, and communications technology. He challenges the wisdom of counterinsurgency methods developed by the French and still used by the Americans today, and explains why the First Indochina War was arguably the most brutal war of decolonization in the twentieth century, killing a million Vietnamese, most of them civilians. Panoramic in scope, The Road to Dien Bien Phu transforms our understanding of this conflict and the one the United States would later enter, and sheds new light on communist warfare and statecraft in East Asia today.
Download or read book War By Other Means written by Carlyle A. Thayer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-27 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1989, examines the creation and implementation of Communist policy in Vietnam during the crucial period between the 1954 Geneva Conference and the establishment of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam in December 1960. This study challenges long-held views about the origins and nature of the Viet Cong. It carefully examines the various stages in the struggle for ‘national liberation’ during this period, reviews the consequences of the failure of purely political means to achieve reunification and then focuses on the struggle between the Diem regime and the Communists.
Download or read book Special Issue written by Sophie Quinn-Judge and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Outposts of Empire written by Steven Hugh Lee and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The U S Government and the Vietnam War 1945 1961 written by William Conrad Gibbons and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
