In case readers of this blog are not familiar with the “New Books in Southeast Asian Studies” podcast series, I would like to draw attention to a wonderful episode on historian Pierre Asselin’s most recent book, Vietnam’s American War: A History, a work that seeks to examine the war from the the perspective of the North, and that in doing so challenges various long-held myths.
Pierre is Professor and Dwight E. Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations at San Diego State University, and has previously published two other books on the Vietnam War. In my mind, Pierre is “Mr. Vietnam War,” as he has dedicated his professional life to understanding that conflict, and has done so by examining it from multiple perspectives, and by tirelessly digging through archives around the world. The man knows what he’s talking about.
In this podcast, Pierre is interviewed by another historian of Vietnam (and Indonesia, and world history), Michael Vann. The two establish a great rapport, and the conversation flows smoothly, covering multiple topics, but ultimately bringing out some key issues in Pierre’s book.
One key topic is the issue of what we might call the “information war” that took place during the Vietnam War. Without a doubt, the most widely known and recognized understanding of Vietnam is the idea that nationalism developed early in Vietnam and that the Vietnamese have a long history of resistance to foreign aggression.
As Pierre points out in this podcast, that idea is a myth, one that was fabricated during the early years of the Vietnam by the leadership in the North.
What is particularly important about that myth, however, is the way that it was mobililzed by the North Vietnamese leadership during the war, for as Pierre argues, the leaders in the North “recognized that this war did not have to be fought on only one front – the military front – but could also be fought politically domestically and then diplomatically internationally.”
Pierre states further about the North Vietnamese leadership during the war that “They knew how to play the world, how to manipulate public opinion domestically and internationally through these grand narratives that were so successful that even though the war is behind us, we still use them to teach the war.”
Indeed, mythical grand narratives about the early development of Vietnamese nationalism and the history of uniting against foreign aggression continue to be recycled and repeated today. That someone like Pierre still has to argue this point today, instead of it being widely recognized as it should be, demonstrates how successful the North Vietnamese leadership was in the information war in the Vietnam War.
Again, it’s a very interesting podcast, and for anyone who knows Pierre, his personality and enthusiasm come shining through.
https://newbooksnetwork.com/pierre-asselin-vietnams-american-war-a-history-cambridge-up-2018/
