Vietnam and the West: New Approaches (review)

"Scholars and journalists have published countless volumes on the actions of Western powers in Vietnam." This first sentence on the first page of Vietnam and the West: New Approaches acknowledges the vast material on the subject. Wynn Wilcox, the volume's editor, notes in the introduction that these essays represent a fresh approach to a well-worn subject. For the most part, however, the essays in Vietnam and the West do not break new ground. Some of the essays are quite weak in scholarship, analysis, and relevance to the book's thesis.

Vietnam and the West is a compilation of papers presented at a December 2005 conference at Western Connecticut State University. Contributors include professors of history, anthropology, and political science, as well as independent scholars. So there is a definite multidisciplinary approach to the subject of the West's interaction with Vietnam. The book is divided into three sections: "Precolonial Encounters (to 1862)," "French and American Encounters (1862-1975)," and "Recent Encounters (1975-Present)." As is the case in most books composed of a conference's proceedings, the quality of scholarship varies, and some of the essays seem forced into trying to fit the volume's subject. Some of the papers encompass more than thirty pages, whereas others are but a dozen pages in length. The three sections also widely differ in quality and relevance.

So what is the new approach? After scores of volumes on the French and American experiences in Vietnam, does this volume represent something new? No, not really. Wilcox claims that the essays aim to "get beyond the idea that Vietnamese history can or should be viewed as 'autonomous'" and "to revise the chronologies associated with the Vietnam/West relationship" by focusing on individuals and their impact on Vietnam-West relations (p. 3). But there are other authors who have followed similar approaches to West-Vietnam relations. Some of these writers include Neil Jamieson, Paul Mus, and Oscar Chapuis, to name just a few.

The first section of the book, "Precolonial Encounters (to 1862)," is by far the strongest portion of the work. Three essays make up this segment and touch on the disparate topics of: Christian Nôm literature; Jean Marie Despiau, the French doctor in the Nguyen imperial palace; and Dang Duc Tuan, the Vietnamese Catholic priest whose faith never clouded his nationalism. In all three essays the book's thesis shines through: the Vietnamese did not change their culture to imitate Western modernity; rather, the mutual give and take between Vietnamese and Westerners produced a localized-adopted norm that fit the indigenous culture. As Professor Wilcox writes, "these essays avoid the Eurocentric assumptions about the 'Vietnamese response' or 'Vietnamese modernization' heuristics, while still retaining a concern for the centrality of indigenous identities and culture" (p. 16).

Squeezed between the book's strong opening and weak final segments is the mediocre section "French and American Encounters (1862-1975)." Its four essays discuss women in the Vietnamese resistance, propaganda directed toward colonial minority soldiers, South Vietnam's trade unions, and the elusive Holy Grail of a political third option (neither Communist nor an America-aligned government) that never emerged during the war. The strength of these essays is in how the authors synthesize existing material on their topics. In that sense, they are not breaking any new ground; even in their analyses one comes away more convinced that there is nothing new under the sun.

The final section, "Recent Encounters (1975-Present)," consists of two brief essays that seem out of place with the book's theme; the final essay, "Strategic Waters, Tragic Waters: Water Privatization in Vietnam," has little to do with the West in Vietnam. The other essay, "Agent Orange, Vietnam, and the United States: Blurring the Boundaries," is based on interviews with one family whose child was identified as "likely to have been affected by Agent Orange" (p. 177). To base an entire paper (and subsequently a...