Customer Reviews

Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam, 1919-1950 (The New Cold War History)

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From an already fragmentary record, Bradley describes a Vietnam in its last years of French and Japanese colonialism. A sense of piquancy pervades the narrative. We see how American officials tried to wean the French off their colonial role and to encourage indigenous ["native"] Vietnamese participation in their country's economy. There is also shown admiration by the Vietnamese of American history. Ironic in light of how later many of these nationalists would become communists in north Vietnam and fiercely fight the US.

A current reader cannot fail but be struck by a sense of failed opportunity. What if, in the immediate postwar years, the US had displayed a more accurate understanding of the Vietnamese communists. Some 2 decades of bloodshed might have been avoided. Of course, this is with hindsight. But still...

When I first read this book I was really quite impressed with what appeared to be painstaking research . However recently I found that one of the key images put forth by the author was incorrect . Hence I have to question all that follows. In the introduction which is titled : Liberty and the Making of Postcolonial Order the author makes much of the the fact that a replica of the Statue of Liberty was unveiled in Hanoi in 1887 just five months after the original made its debut in New York Harbour . The author then states that 50 years later on 2 September 1945 that the Statue was still there on the other end of Ba Dinh Square where Ho Chi Minh declared independence of Vietnam . That would have certainly been ironic if true . I recently submitted the issue to the Vietnam Studies Group , a mostly academic forum that specialize in Vietnamese issues. They quickly pointed out and even produced newspaper clippings showing that the Statue of Liberty replica put in place by the French had been removed from sight several months before Ho Speech in September 1945. When faced with such a glaring error on an issue that was setting the scene and tone of the book I must wonder about the validity of the other research relected in the book . I am sorely disappointed.