Looking Back on the Vietnam War
Twenty-first-Century Perspectives
Brenda M Boyle editor Jeehyun Lim editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Rutgers University Press
Published:17th Jun '16
Should be back in stock very soon
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.
"A collection of studies on the way the war is being remembered and commemorated … The diasporic theme is a welcome counterbalance to the US-centered canon that obscures the presence of the Vietnamese people in their own struggle for independence and all but elides them in studies of the postwar years ... Recommended." * Choice *
"It is a crucial and timely moment to revisit the meanings of the Vietnam War. This book is a hugely valuable reassessment of the war's legacies and cultural impact." -- Marita Sturken * author of Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering *
"We're just now barely getting a grip on the myriad aftermaths of the Vietnam War. I enthusiastically urge anyone interested in wars or 'post-wars' to read this fine book--slowly." -- Cynthia Enloe * author of Globalization and Militarism, updated edition *
"This superb volume brings together a remarkable group of scholars whose attention to disaporic sensibilities, war memory, and contrapuntal narratives fundamentally remakes our understanding of the Vietnam War's cultural politics." -- Mark Philip Bradley * The University of Chicago *
"Looking Back on the Vietnam War is haunting in its unflinching critique and intervention to denaturalize warfare and disentangle its afterlife. It is most sublime in rupturing once conventional narratives." -- Linda Trinh Vo * University of California, Irvine *
ISBN: 9780813579948
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: unknown
256 pages