History 498

Fall 2010

Devine

 

Study Questions: Bradley, Imagining Vietnam & America, pp. 1-106

 

 

  1. How did different participants in the Vietnamese Reform Movement at the turn of the twentieth century (such as Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh) “imagine” the U.S.?  How did their descriptions and interpretations of American History reflect their own priorities for the further development of Vietnam?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. What role did traditional Confucian values play in influencing how the Vietnamese reformers “imagined” America?  Why did some Vietnamese elites embrace Social Darwinism?  How did their version of Social Darwinism differ from that articulated in the West?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. How did interwar Vietnamese intellectuals “imagine” America?  What factors helped shape their ideas about America and how the American experience might be useful in imagining post-colonial Vietnam?  Why did they speak so highly of America?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. How did receiving a French education shape Vietnamese students’ impressions of the United States and also help to further radicalize them during the 1920s?  How did the students begin to apply their knowledge of western values to challenge western (i.e. French) colonialism?

 

 

 

 

 

  1. What evidence does the author introduce in suggesting that during the pre-World War II period, Ho Chi Minh was not a “pawn” (or even an admirer) of Stalin and his approach to Communism?  Why did Ho find the Chinese model more attractive?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. How did their extended time in prison shape Vietnamese radicals’ ideas about Marxism-Leninism?  If this ideology encouraged them to think in internationalist terms, how did the prison experience also make these radicals more parochial and less worldly in their thinking?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. What factors shaped American observers’ impressions of the “Annamites”?  To what extent were their impressions driven by pre-existing prejudices?  What role did the French play in shaping such impressions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. To what extent did the age-old “nature vs nurture” debate play a part in shaping American views of the “native” Vietnamese?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. What were some of the common (mis)perceptions Americans had of the Vietnamese people?

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Why did American officials sharply criticize the French colonial administration of Indochina? What would these Americans have done better?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Bradley argues that the Americans’ attitudes toward colonization and colonial peoples were closer to those of the French than the Americans’ would have liked to admit. What evidence does he introduce to support this argument?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Why did American officials have a hard time accepting 1) the existence of Vietnamese nationalism and 2) the prospects of Vietnamese self-governance or independence?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. What did FDR think of the Vietnamese? How did these thoughts help determine how he envisioned (or, if you will, imagined) post-colonial Vietnam?  How did FDR’s plans for postwar Vietnam reveal his own prejudices and uninformed assumptions about the Vietnamese?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. What was the difference between making Vietnam an “international trusteeship” and turning it back over to the French?  Was there a difference?

 

 

 

 

  1. How did World War II-era reports from Asia (often through the lenses of French or Chinese intelligence) portray the “Annamites”?  If the Americans were so critical of the French colonial regime, why were they so willing to listen to French informants’ assessments of the Vietnamese?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Why did the “accelerating movement toward decolonization in Vietnam” worry both the French and the Americans?