Inventing Vietnam

The United States and State Building, 1954–1968

Bibliographic Data

ID19901010
AuthorsJames M Carter (0000-0001-5379-8325, Drew University, corresponding author)
Year2008
Publication date2008-04-14
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueInventing Vietnam (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511809255
OpenAlexW4247654327
Open LibraryOL18460001M
ISBN9780511809255
LanguageEN
Citations received17

This book considers the Vietnam war in light of U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam, concluding that the war was a direct result of failed state-building efforts. This U.S. nation building project began in the mid-1950s with the ambitious goal of creating a new independent, democratic, modern state below the 17th parallel. No one involved imagined this effort would lead to a major and devastating war in less than a decade. Carter analyzes how the United States ended up fighting a large-scale war that wrecked the countryside, generated a flood of refugees, and brought about catastrophic economic distortions, results which actually further undermined the larger U.S. goal of building a viable state. Carter argues that, well before the Tet Offensive shocked the viewing public in late January, 1968, the campaign in southern Vietnam had completely failed and furthermore, the program contained the seeds of its own failure from the outset

Democracy · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Offensive · Operations research · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science) · Vietnam War · Engineering · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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