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When Gerald Hickey went to Vietnam in 1956 to complete his Ph.D. in anthropology, he didn't realize he would be there for most of the next eighteen years--through the entire Vietnam War. After working with the country folk of the Mekong Delta for several years, in 1963 Hickey was recruited by the Rand Corporation, which was contracted by the U.S. government to study and report on the highland tribes. From the buildup to war, when mountain tribespeople still lived in longhouses and cut and burned brush to clear fields for nice, to near the end of the conflict, when he sailed away from Vietnam on the S.S. Idaho, Gerald Hickey experienced it all. He lived through the horrible Viet Cong night at...
This book looks at ethnographic discourses concerning the indigenous population of Vietnam's Central Highlands during periods of christianization, colonization, war and socialist transformation, and analyses these in their relation to tribal, ethnic, territorial, governmental and gendered discourses. Salemink's book is a timely contribution to anthropological knowledge, as the ethnic minorities in Vietnam have (again) been the object of fierce academic debate. This is a historically grounded post-colonial critique relevant to theories of ethnicity and the history of anthropology, and will be of interest to graduate students of anthropology and cultural studies, as well as Vietnam studies.
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In almost every military intervention in its history, the US has made cultural mistakes that hindered attainment of its policy goals. From the strategic bombing of Vietnam to the accidental burning of the Koran in Afghanistan, it has blundered around with little consideration of local cultural beliefs and for the long-term effects on the host nation's society. Cultural anthropology--the so-called "handmaiden of colonialism"--has historically served as an intellectual bridge between Western powers and local nationals. What light can it shed on the intersection of the US military and foreign societies today? This book tells the story of anthropologists who worked directly for the military, such as Ursula Graham Bower, the only woman to hold a British combat command during WWII. Each faced challenges including the negative outcomes of exporting Western political models and errors of perception. Ranging from the British colonial era in Africa to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Military Anthropology illustrates the conceptual, cultural and practical barriers encountered by military organisations operating in societies vastly different from their own.
Cowboy was handsome, flamboyant, courageous, clever, and cruel. He got his nickname from the Green Berets who worked with him in the Highlands of South Vietnam in the 1960s. "You've got to take the bad with the good," one Special Forces captain said of him. "And Cowboy is a good interpreter." And in the end, he was murdered by his own side, the Montagnard rebels who were equally opposed to the Communists in Hanoi and the generals in Saigon. A compelling look at a country and a people caught up in a Cold War they couldn't understand, and which in the end destroyed them.
This book explores the life and times of Roméo LeBlanc, one of Canada's most popular and successful politicians and statesmen. Probably best known as the long-standing fisheries minister in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet from 1974 to 1982, LeBlanc's career spanned the golden era of Liberalism in Canada. He capped his career during the nineties as the country's twenty-fifth governor general. Historian Naomi E. S. Griffiths spent many years reading through LeBlanc's papers and interviewing many of his colleagues to explore the worlds he moved in -- Paris in the late forties and early fifties, world capitals during his time as a journalist, and then Ottawa. As a writer with an in-depth knowledge of ...
This landmark study of the Vietnamese conflict, examined through the lens of the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements in the rural province of Long An up until American intervention in the area, offers a human, balanced, penetrating account of war. Two new forewords by Robert K. Brigham of Vassar College and Jeffrey Record of the Air War College explore the book's enduring influence. A new end chapter offers previously unpublished scholarship on the conflict.
The Encyclopedia of Military Science provides a comprehensive, ready-reference on the organization, traditions, training, purpose, and functions of today’s military. Entries in this four-volume work include coverage of the duties, responsibilities, and authority of military personnel and an understanding of strategies and tactics of the modern military and how they interface with political, social, legal, economic, and technological factors. A large component is devoted to issues of leadership, group dynamics, motivation, problem-solving, and decision making in the military context. Finally, this work also covers recent American military history since the end of the Cold War with a special emphasis on peacekeeping and peacemaking operations, the First Persian Gulf War, the events surrounding 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and how the military has been changing in relation to these events. Click here to read an article on The Daily Beast by Encyclopedia editor G. Kurt Piehler, "Why Don't We Build Statues For Our War Heroes Anymore?"
Vietnam is a country on the move. Yet contemporary Vietnam's education system is at a crossroads. Rapid economic growth has permitted rapid increases in the scale and scope of formal schooling, but there is a prevailing sense that the current education system is inadequate to the country’s needs. Sunny assessments of Vietnam's “achievements” in the sphere of education have given way to a realization that the country lacks skilled workers. Some have even spoken of an "education crisis". These are not abstract concerns. What is occurring in Vietnam's education system today has broad implications for the country’s social, political, economic, and cultural development. Featuring contributions from scholars and policy analysts from within and outside Vietnam, Education in Vietnam addresses key issues pertaining to the political economy of education, the provision and payment for primary and secondary education, and the development of vocational and tertiary education. The book marks an important contribution to existing understandings of Vietnam’s education system and contributes to broader understandings of social conditions and change in contemporary Vietnam.