Imagining Vietnam and America

“Bradley. . . draw[s] on Vietnamese-language sources to an extraordinary degree — and in the process turns up information that may surprise many of his American readers. . . . Bradley’s effort to place American-Vietnamese relations in a broader context is welcome.” — New York Times Book Review

“This book will stand tall among the many studies examining the relations between the United States and Vietnam.” — American Historical Review

“This book is a rare and wonderful thing: a study of United States–Vietnam relations that says new things in new ways. . . . As perceptive a study of the roots of the Vietnam conflict as we are likely to get.” — Journal of American History

“This insightful book explains better than any work thus far why Americans believed they could replace the French without inheriting the stigma of colonialism and, despite France’s disastrous experience, succeed militarily against the Viet Cong . . . . Those who believe that culture matters in international relations will find much support for their arguments in this brief but significant work.” — Political Science Quarterly

“Thoughtful and thought-provoking, Bradley’s book succeeds admirably.” — Cold War History

“Bradley scrupulously analyzes the scholarship of the postcolonial period of Vietnam’s turbulent history and the cataclysmic events that followed.” — Library Journal

“[This book] is a pioneering effort. It is the sort of culturally grounded, multi-lingual, multi-archival work, which historians are always babbling about but so few have so far been able to do. We can only hope that it is the beginning of a trend.” — Reviews in American History

“This is a highly sophisticated work and recommended reading for any serious student of culture, diplomacy, intellectual history, and the making of the postcolonial world.” — Journal of Military History

“This splendid book calls for a reconsideration of both the international history of the twentieth century and the dynamics of the U.S.-Vietnam conflict by positing a nexus between culture and diplomacy.” — CHOICE

“Bradley’s brave attempt to bring the imaginative domain of cultural understanding and its symbolic language to the field of U.S. diplomatic history . . . puts the book in an innovative and exceptional category.” — Journal of Asian Studies