Description: Vietnam's Lost Revolution employs newly-released archival material from Vietnam to examine the rise and fall of the Special Commissariat for Civic Action in the First Republic of Vietnam, and in so doing reassesses the origins of the Vietnam War. A cornerstone of Ngô Đình Diệm's presidency, Civic Action was intended to transform Vietnam into a thriving, modern, independent, noncommunist Southeast Asian nation. Geoffrey Stewart juxtaposes Diem's revolutionary plan with the conflicting and competing visions of Vietnam's postcolonial future held by other indigenous groups. He shows how the government failed to gain legitimacy within the peasantry, ceding the advantage to the communist-led opposition and paving the way for the American military intervention in the mid-1960s. This book provides a richer and more nuanced analysis of the origins of the Vietnam War in which internal struggles over national identity, self-determination, and even modernity itself are central.
Brief description: Geoffrey C. Stewart is an assistant professor of history at the University of Western Ontario. His research focuses on the intersection of decolonization with the Cold War in the developing world. He specializes in the history of Vietnam's wars, twentieth-century international relations, and the United States in the world. He has published in the Journal of Vietnamese Studies and written book reviews for H-Diplo, Cross-Currents and the Journal of Asian Studies.
Review Quotes: Advance praise: 'In this meticulously researched book, Geoffrey Stewart details the rise and fall of Diệm's national revolution in South Vietnam. Making extensive use of South Vietnamese archives, Stewart offers an intimate look at how and why the Diệm government failed to create a viable South Vietnamese nation state. Placing South Vietnamese officials front and center in his narrative, Stewart gives agency back to the actors who had the most to win, or lose, as they struggled to maintain their footing in the cross currents of a Cold War and decolonizing world.' Kathryn C. Statler, University of San Diego