Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam - Hardcover

Statler, Kathryn C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813124409 ISBN 13: 9780813124407

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 2007

Synopsis

Using recently released archival materials from the United States and Europe, Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam explains how and why the United States came to assume control as the dominant western power in Vietnam during the 1950s. Acting on their conviction that American methods had a better chance of building a stable, noncommunist South Vietnamese nation, Eisenhower administration officials systematically ejected French military, economic, political, bureaucratic, and cultural institutions from Vietnam. Kathryn C. Statler examines diplomatic maneuvers in Paris, Washington, London, and Saigon to detail how Western alliance members sought to transform South Vietnam into a modern, westernized, and democratic ally but ultimately failed to counter the Communist threat. Abetted by South Vietnamese prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem, Americans in Washington, D.C., and Saigon undermined their French counterparts at every turn, resulting in the disappearance of a French presence by the time Kennedy assumed office. Although the United States ultimately replaced France in South Vietnam, efforts to build South Vietnam into a nation failed. Instead, it became a dependent client state that was unable to withstand increasing Communist aggression from the North. Replacing France is a fundamental reassessment of the origins of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that explains how Franco-American conflict led the United States to pursue a unilateral and ultimately imperialist policy in Vietnam.

About this title

About the Author:

Kathryn C. Statler is associate professor of history at the University of San Diego and coeditor of The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War.

Review:

"Kathryn Statler's Replacing France is an original interpretation of why and how the United States replaced France as the dominant Western power in Vietnam during the 1950s. This book will demand the attention of all scholars of American foreign policy and Vietnam War." ―David F. Schmitz,Whitman College, author of The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, a"

"In the crowded field of Vietnam scholarship, Statler offers something fresh and important." ―Mark Atwood Lawrence, author of Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Co"

""This detailed, thoroughly researched book is a pleasure to read. The prose is so lively that the reader progresses easily through this complicated story. Professor Statler offers her judgments after carefully laying out the available evidence and citing the work of scholars with conflicting interpretations. In its depth of scholarship, careful analysis and clear prose, Replacing France is an important complement to previous scholarship on the origins of the United States commitment in Vietnam." ―Marianna P. Sullivan, Military History"

""Overall, this is a well-conceived and deeply researched study that does much to illuminate the sources of tension in the Franco-American relationship over Vietnam, and the far from straightforward way that the United States supplanted (but did not replace completely) French influence in the years following defeat at Dien Bien Phu." ―Matthew Jones,The Journal of American History"

""[Statler] convincingly argues that the inability of France and the US to agree on a common policy in Indochina and against the communist threat in general caused the US to replace France as a major Western power in Vietnam." ―L. M. Les,Choice"

""Kathryn Statler. . . has written an erudite, well-researched, and deep and penetrating analysis of the process where in the United States replaced France as the 'colonial' power in Indo China, however inadvertently.""This is a fascinating story, well told." ―Capt. John F. O'Connell, Air Power History"

"Statler's book is well-written and thoroughly researched. Any scholar studying American foreign policy or the Vietnam War would find this work a valuable resource." ―Kevin M. Brady, On Point"

"Statler's book does provide us with a fascinating, detailed and much needed account of the transition of power from France to the United States in South Vietnam while Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam controlled the North." ―Peter Neville, Diplomacy and Statecraft"

"One comes away from this book deeply impressed by Statler's research and her ability to piece together a complicated narrative from many hundreds of documents." ―Andrew J. Rotter, American Historical Review"

""In powerfully illuminating the understudied era between the wars, [the book] is now the essential starting point for all future scholarship on this period." ―Mark Philip Bradley,International Review of History"

"If you're curious about how we got into the mess that was Vietnam, Kathryn C. Statler has answers in Replacing France: The Origins of the American Intervention in Vietnam. Statler delivers a fairly clear and concise narrativeearning this volume a place on any Vietnam bookshelf."―HistoryNet

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0813124409
• ISBN 13: 9780813124407
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392