The defeat of South Vietnam was arguably America's worst foreign policy disaster of the 20th Century. Yet a complete understanding of the endgame--from the 27 January 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords to South Vietnam's surrender on 30 April 1975--has eluded us. Black April addresses that deficit. A culmination of exhaustive research in three distinct areas: primary source documents from American archives, North Vietnamese publications containing primary and secondary source material, and dozens of articles and numerous interviews with key South Vietnamese participants, this book represents one of the largest Vietnamese translation projects ever accomplished, including almost one hundred rarely or never seen before North Vietnamese unit histories, battle studies, and memoirs. Most important, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of South Vietnam's conquest, the leaders in Hanoi released several compendiums of formerly highly classified cables and memorandum between the Politburo and its military commanders in the south. This treasure trove of primary source materials provides the most complete insight into North Vietnamese decision-making ever complied. While South Vietnamese deliberations remain less clear, enough material exists to provide a decent overview. Ultimately, whatever errors occurred on the American and South Vietnamese side, the simple fact remains that the country was conquered by a North Vietnamese military invasion despite written pledges by Hanoi's leadership against such action. Hanoi's momentous choice to destroy the Paris Peace Accords and militarily end the war sent a generation of South Vietnamese into exile, and exacerbated a societal trauma in America over our long Vietnam involvement that reverberates to this day. How that transpired deserves deeper scrutiny.

English-language scholarship all too often dismisses South Vietnam as an American creation, a product of US imperialism. Republican Vietnam boldly upends this depiction, exposing a diverse and dynamic portrait of the Second Republic. In twelve essays, each based on original archival research, the volume brings to life the Second Republic in all its complexities, displaying how politicians, students, educators, publishers, journalists, musicians, religious leaders, businessmen, and ordinary citizens built a highly intricate society—with dazzling entrepreneurial zeal, an outspoken press, globally engaged religions, a vibrant intellectual and associational culture, and a level of artistic production that remains unmatched since the Vietnam War. That inspired and frenzied age, though short lived, held a resilient spirit that Vietnamese refugees have kept alive. The trove of vernacular music and print media, not to mention the many associations the Vietnamese diaspora founded, exemplify the republican values that once energized South Vietnamese culture. But this nuanced society has appeared in popular media and American scholarship as a hopelessly dependent nation, led by corrupt dictators beholden to US interests. In contrast to such negative stereotypes, this account situates South Vietnamese front and center as agents of their own histories. Republican Vietnam is the first collection of scholarly essays on the Second Republic since the end of the Vietnam War. It is also among the first to use republicanism as a lens to re-examine twentieth-century Vietnamese history, the Vietnam War, and the diaspora. The twelve essays together show how war, in tandem with external intervention, shaped South Vietnam’s economy, culture, and the life of every individual and family. By featuring works from Vietnamese and Vietnamese diasporic studies, this text takes the important step of bridging the two fields, laying the foundation for cross-disciplinary projects in the future.