The Vietnam Wars (321-0-20)

Instructors

Michael J. Allen
847/467-3979
Harris Hall - Room 342
Michael Allen researches the relationship between ideas and action in US politics and diplomacy. His book Until The Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War examined the legacies of American defeat in the Vietnam Wars through a history of the POW/MIA movement. His current book The Center Ring: The Making and Breaking of the Liberal Presidency examines the relationship between liberal reform and presidential power from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon.

Meeting Info

University Hall 101: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

The Vietnam Wars encapsulated key dimensions of 20th-century world history: the collapse of European colonialism in the face of world wars and popular movements for freedom, equality, and sovereignty; the ascendancy of U.S. power and responses to it; and the rise and fall of the Cold War in response. U.S. involvement in Indochina was also the defining event in US foreign policy between 1954 and 1975, which is why the failures of that policy fundamentally changed US politics.

This course examines these developments through a close study of the Vietnam Wars--wars upon wars and wars within wars involving combatants from all over the world. It treats the Vietnam Wars in global perspective, while attending to developments inside the United States and Vietnam. Lectures treat the war's international, political, social, and cultural dimensions along with military strategy and combat operations, while readings consist mostly of oral histories, official documents, and other primary sources.

Learning Objectives

Read, analyze, and evaluate varied primary source materials to become familiar with how diverse groups experienced and participated in the Vietnam Wars and to learn to make sense of variation and disagreement within such source materials; Read, analyze, and evaluate varied secondary sources that offer scholarly interpretations of key questions in the history of the Vietnam Wars, thereby developing proficiency in historical argument, documentation, and debate; Engage in reasoned, respectful, evidence-based discussion and debate with other interpreters of history in verbal and written forms; Analyze, synthesize, and organize varied source materials into accurate and persuasive verbal and written arguments in answer to historical questions; Gain foundational knowledge of the political, social, cultural, intellectual, and technological forces in modern history and learn how they interacted across time and space.

Evaluation Method

Participation: 10% / Quizzes: 20% / Weekly Reflections: 20% / Essay: 30% / Final: 20%

Class Notes

History Major Concentration(s): Americas, Asia/Middle East
History Minor Concentration(s): United States

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Registration is restricted to History Majors and Minors only until the end of pre-registration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone who has taken the prerequisites (if any)

Associated Classes

DIS - University Hall 112: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM

DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-410: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM

DIS - Annenberg Hall G28: Fri 2:00PM - 2:50PM