By the end of the American war in Vietnam, the coastal province of Phu Yen was one of the least-secure provinces in the Republic of Vietnam. It was also a prominent target of the American strategy of pacification - an effort, purportedly separate and distinct from conventional warfare, to win the 'hearts and minds' of the Vietnamese. In Robert J. Thompson III's analysis, the consistent, and consistently unsuccessful, struggle to place Phu Yen under Saigon's banner makes the province particularly fertile ground for studying how the Americans advanced pacification and why this effort ultimately failed. In March 1970, a disastrous military engagement began in Phu Yen, revealing the enemy's continued presence after more than three years of pacification. Clear, Hold, and Destroy provides a fresh perspective on the war across multiple levels, from those making and implementing policy to those affected by it. Most pointedly, Thompson contends that pacification, far from existing apart from conventional warfare, actually depended on conventional military forces for its application. His study reaches back into Phu Yen's storied history with pacification before and during the French colonial period, then focuses on the province from the onset of the American War in 1965 to its conclusion in 1975. A sharply focused, fine-grained analysis of one critical province during the Vietnam War, Thompson's work demonstrates how pacification is better understood as the foundation of U.S. fighting in Vietnam.

In 2012, President Obama announced that the United States would spend the next thirteen years - through November 11, 2025 - commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, and the American soldiers, "more than 58,000 patriots," who died in Vietnam. The fact that at least 2.1 million Vietnamese - soldiers, parents, grandparents, children - also died in that war will be largely unknown and entirely uncommemorated. And U.S. history barely stops to record the millions of Vietnamese who lived on after being displaced, tortured, maimed, raped, or born with birth defects, the result of devastating chemicals wreaked on the land by the U.S. military. The reason for this appalling disconnect of consciousness lies in an unremitting public relations campaign waged by top American politicians, military leaders, business people, and scholars who have spent the last sixty years justifying the U.S. presence in Vietnam. It is a campaign of patriotic conceit superbly chronicled by John Marciano in The American War in Vietnam: Crime or Commemoration?A devastating follow-up to Marciano's 1979 classic Teaching the Vietnam War (written with William L. Griffen), Marciano's book seeks not to commemorate the Vietnam War, but to stop the ongoing U.S. war on actual history. Marciano reveals the grandiose flag-waving that stems from the "Noble Cause principle," the notion that America is "chosen by God" to bring democracy to the world. Marciano writes of the Noble Cause being invoked unsparingly by presidents - from Jimmy Carter, in his observation that, regarding Vietnam, "the destruction was mutual," to Barack Obama, who continues the flow of romantic media propaganda: "The United States of America ...will remain the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known."The result is critical writing and teaching at its best. This book will find a home in classrooms where teachers seek to do more than repeat the trite glorifications of U.S. empire. It will provide students everywhere with insights that can prepare them to change the world.

Winner, 2020 Peter C Rollins Prize, given by the Northeast Popular & American Culture Association Enables a reckoning with the legacy of the Forgotten War through literary and cinematic works of cultural memory Though often considered "the forgotten war," lost between the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, the Korean War was, as Daniel Y. Kim argues, a watershed event that fundamentally reshaped both domestic conceptions of race and the interracial dimensions of the global empire that the United States would go on to establish. He uncovers a trail of cultural artefacts that speaks to the trauma experienced by civilians during the conflict but also evokes an expansive web of complicity in the suffering that they endured. Taking up a range of American popular media from the 1950s, Kim offers a portrait of the Korean War as it looked to Americans while they were experiencing it in real time. Kim expands this archive to read a robust host of fiction from US writers like Susan Choi, Rolando Hinojosa, Toni Morrison, and Chang-rae Lee, and the Korean author Hwang Sok-yong. The multiple and ongoing historical trajectories presented in these works testify to the resurgent afterlife of this event in US cultural memory, and of its lasting impact on multiple racialized populations, both within the US and in Korea. The Intimacies of Conflict offers a robust, multifaceted, and multidisciplinary analysis of the pivotal-but often unacknowledged-consequences of the Korean War in both domestic and transnational histories of race.

A unique on-the-ground account of a country shattered
Iraqi playwright Issam Jameel returned to Iraq after a 12-year exile. Giving up the relative safety of Jordan, he made a perilous journey to Baghdad for a reunion. Unfortunately, the reason for his trip was to grieve for his nephew, recently killed by American forces while guarding an Iraq parliament member from insurgents. Jameel also mourns the loss of a formerly secular civil society replaced by vehement sectarianism, intolerance, and ignorance. Basic human needs like food, water, and power have become an endless daily struggle amidst the shards of infrastructure. Routine tasks, such as selling a house or getting a job are fraught with peril as old scores continue to be settled on religious, ethnic, and political fronts. Everywhere he turns, people are desperate to leave, but fear for the worst. After escaping this madness, he recorded his eyewitness report, desperate to provide an honest and impartial tale of an epic tragedy which has killed more than 100,000 people and displaced many more.
Today, the US government gambles with Iraq's stability by turning a blind eye to Al-Maliki's internal policy, especially after Wikileaks revealed his complicity in death squads. We are jeopardizing the hard-won political gains that the US achieved by neutralizing the Sunnis of Iraq when it converted them from fighters and boycotters to voters. The US administration fails to show much real concern for the future of democracy in Iraq except perhaps for its anxiety about Obama's promises of military withdrawal.
Critics Praise "Iraq Through A Bullet Hole"
"Issam Jameel's "Iraq Through A Bullet Hole" is evocative in the best sense of the word. A native Iraqi, he describes with measured sadness and authenticity the dismemberment of his country by a senseless war. His perspective on events there-both personal and general-will not be found in reporting done by the Western press. His tale reminds us that the things that matter most-family, friends, and faith can and will endure even the most severe trials. I highly recommend this book for its relevance and timelessness."
--Cristobal Krusen, Author and Filmmaker
"Iraq has been a focus for our attention for years now, since our armed forces went looking for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction there. The media have presented a picture-but how real is it? What is life really like in that unfortunate country? Find out by reading this book."
--Robert Rich, PhD, Author of "Cancer: A Personal Challenge"
"Going home is such a trivial thing to so many people in the world. This story is the revealing statement of one man that went home to find it lost in such a strife-filled region, considered by historians as the origin of modern civilization. For those who do know how difficult his journey was, they will relate to Issam's message which is one of perseverance, shared hope and a common faith in mankind that in the end, all could eventually be well. If only men would let it..."
--Bill Evans, civilian contractor in Iraq
More info at www.IraqThruABulletHole.com
Book #5 in the Reflections of History Series from Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
BIO000000 Biography & Autobiography: General
HIS027170 History: Military - Iraq War (2003-)
HIS026000 History: Middle East - General

In 1961, the U.S. government established the first formalized provisions for intercountry adoption just as it was expanding America's involvement with Vietnam. Adoption became an increasingly important portal of entry into American society for Vietnamese and Amerasian children, raising questions about the United States' obligations to refugees and the nature of the family during an era of heightened anxiety about U.S. global interventions. Whether adopting or favoring the migration of multiracial individuals, Americans believed their norms and material comforts would salve the wounds of a divisive war. However, Vietnamese migrants challenged these efforts of reconciliation. As Allison Varzally details in this book, a desire to redeem defeat in Vietnam, faith in the nuclear family, and commitment to capitalism guided American efforts on behalf of Vietnamese youths. By tracing the stories of Vietnamese migrants, however, Varzally reveals that while many had accepted separations as a painful strategy for survival in the midst of war, most sought, and some eventually found, reunion with their kin. This book makes clear the role of adult adoptees in Vietnamese and American debates about the forms, privileges, and duties of families, and places Vietnamese children at the center of American and Vietnamese efforts to assign responsibility and find peace in the aftermath of conflict.