Basic Resources For the Study

NEW LIFE ON THE MEKONG: VIETNAM, CAMBODIA & LAOS by R. Lawrence Turnipseed with Leader's Guide by Faye Wilson. GBGM $7.50. Service Center #2968.

   This study looks at three countries in Southeast Asia which share a history of war with our own. The first three chapters give brief overviews of the unique histories of these three countries. The fourth helps to sharpen our focus on the war that left its imprint on Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and the United States. The fifth addresses contemporary issues and looks ahead to the future of mission in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

   The Leader's Guide provides material for five session that include worship, Bible study, group activities and action suggestions. Some supplemental material for youth and children is included.

CAMBODIA MISSION INITIATIVE: WITNESS FOR CHRIST IN CAMBODIA (video). GBGM. $9.95. Service Center #2899.

   This 7 minute video introduces the people, the country, the birth of Methodism and invites participation in this emerging mission initiative of The United Methodist Church through the General Board of Global Ministries.

VIETNAM TODAY: THROUGH AMERICAN EYES (video) . Friendship Press. 2001. $0.00 Service Center #0000

Background for Each Country

MOON HANDBOOKS: VIETNAM, CAMBODIA, AND LAOS, Michael Buckley. Avalon, 1998. $18

   Cultural, historical, current and other background information.

Cambodia

CAMBODIA 1975-1982, Michael Vickery. U of WA, 2000. $17.50

CAMBODIA AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRACY, Frederick Brown and David G. Timberman, eds. Asia Society, 1998. $15.00

CAMBODIA REBORN? : THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT, Grant Curtis. Brookings Institute, 1997. $16.95

GENOCIDE AND DEMOCRACY IN CAMBODIA: THE KHMER ROUGE, THE U.N., AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY, Ben Kiernan, Editor. Yale, 1993. $17

HISTORY OF CAMBODIA, David P. Chandler. Westview, 2000. $30

   The standard for understanding Cambodia.

LONELY PLANET CAMBODIA, Nick Ray. Lonely Planet, 2000. $16

   Although a travel guide, it has history, religious, cultural, economic, current situations and political information.

PROPAGANDA, POLITICS, AND VIOLENCE IN CAMBODIA: DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION UNDER UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING, Steve Heder , Judy Ledgerwood. M.E. Sharpe, 1995. $32.95

   Contains eight essays assessing the links between ethnicity, violence, and nationalism; the nature of propaganda; the notion of human rights; and the responses of the Khmer Rouge to the Paris Agreement. The essays focus on issues which took place during the period of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) from late 1991 to late 1993.

UN PEACEKEEPING IN CAMBODIA: UNTAC'S CIVIL MANDATE, Michael W. Doyle. Lynne Rienner Pub., 1995. $10.95

WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER: CAMBODIA AND THE KHMER ROUGE REVOLUTION, Elizabeth Becker. Public Affairs, 1998. $17

   Beginning with the Khmer Rouge overthrow of the U.S.-backed Lon Nol regime in 1975, Becker examines the historical patterns of violence and authority within Cambodian culture that made the Khmer Rouge's slaughter of close to 2 million people possible. Becker integrates interviews with Cambodian leaders and ordinary citizens with a penetrating analysis of the politics of the cold war and humanitarianism.

WHY VIETNAM INVADED CAMBODIA: POLITICAL CULTURE AND THE CAUSES OF WAR, Stephen J. Morris. Stanford U, 1999. $18.95

   This book is the first comprehensive, scholarly analysis of the causes of the Vietnamese invasion who has made use of the rich archives of the former Communist Party of the

   Soviet Union. These Russian sources, which are the confidential records of the former sponsor and ally of Vietnamese communism, include official reports of conversations between top Vietnamese communist leaders and the Soviet ambassador in Hanoi, as well as Soviet intelligence analyses. They are supplemented by extensive use of French and American archives, as well as interviews with some of the main political decision makers. The book casts new light on the Cold War in Asia, as well as on contemporary politics in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Laos

HISTORY OF LAOS, Martin Stuart-Fox. Cambridge U Press, 1997. $17.95

   Authoritative and wide-ranging history focuses on the period from the founding of modern Laos as a French colony to its independence, involvement in the war in Vietnam, the formation of the communist republic, and the present authoritarian government. The author shows how the nationalist struggle for independence and unity was subverted by foreign intervention, and how the country has now resumed its traditional role as a neutral state in Southeast Asia. This book provides essential background on modern Laos and the challenges it now faces.

I BEGIN MY LIFE ALL OVER: THE HMONG AND THE AMERICAN IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE. Lillian Faderman with Ghia Xiong. Beacon Press, 1998. $15. Service Center #3132.

   Gripping story of people who escaped through the jungles of Laos after the Vietnam War and emigrated to the US. They and their American-born children struggle to balance American life and their Hmong heritage.

LAOS: A COUNTRY STUDY, Andrea Matles Savada, Ed. Claitors,1996. $21

LONELY PLANET LAOS, Joe Cummings. Lonely Planet, 1999. $30

   Although a travel guide, it has political, economic, religious, current, historical, and cultural information.

STALKING THE ELEPHANT KINGS: IN SEARCH OF LAOS. Christopher Kremmer. U of Hawaii, 1997. $17.84

   Author reveals a small land-locked corner of Asia struggling to come to terms with the legacies of the American war and Asian communism. This is travel with a mission and it takes the author deep into Laos--to the bomb craters and enigmatic stone containers of the Plain of Jars, the brooding caves and limestone peaks of Houaphan near the Lao border with Vietnam, and the southern provinces bordering Cambodia.

TRAGIC MOUNTAINS: THE HMONG, THE AMERICANS, AND THE SECRET WARS FOR LAOS, 1942-1992, Jane Hamilton-Merritt. Indiana, 1999. $18.95

   Hmong sided with the Americans against the North Vietnamese and were foot soldiers in the brutal secret war for Laos. Since the war, abandoned by their American allies, the Hmong have been subjected to a campaign of genocide by the North Vietnamese, including the use of chemical weapons. Moves from the big picture of international diplomacy and power politics to the small villages and heroic engagements in the Lao jungle.

Vietnam

BACKFIRE: A HISTORY OF HOW AMERICAN CULTURE LED US INTO VIETNAM AND MADE US FIGHT THE WAY WE DID, Loren Baritz, Johns Hopkins, 1998. $18

   Exposes our national illusions--the conviction of our moral supremacy, our assumption that Americans are more idealistic than other people, and our faith in a technology that supposedly makes us invincible.

BRIGHT SHINING LIE-JOHN PAUL VANN AND AMERICA IN VIETNAM, Neil Sheehan, Random House, 1988. $15.30

   Biography of John Paul Vann is also a sweeping history of America's seduction, entrapment and disillusionment in Vietnam.

DEBATE OVER VIETNAM, THE, David Levy. John Hopkins, 1991. $15

   Examines the propriety, the necessity, and the morality of America's longest war. Levy begins with a brief history of Vietnam under foreign rule and recounts the growing American military presence--and the increasing reaction it provoked. He explores the fundamental values and assumptions of Americans on both sides of the growing debate.

DRAGON ASCENDING: VIETNAM AND THE VIETNAMESE, Henry Kamm, ed. Arcade, 1997. $12.95

   A firsthand report on contemporary Vietnam, its struggles with communism and its placing the war in a four thousand year history perspective.

FIRE IN THE LAKE: THE VIETNAMESE AND THE AMERICANS IN VIETNAM, Frances FitzGerald. Vintage, 1989. $17.00

   Explores the collision between two cultures.

FOOTPRINT VIETNAM HANDBOOK: THE TRAVEL GUIDE, John Colet and Joshua Eliot. Passport, 1999. $17.

   Contains extensive history, current situation, political and economic information.

HO CHI MINH, William J. Duiker Hyperion, 2000. $35.

   Detailed biography for anyone with a serious interest in modern history and the complexities of the man and the issues with which he dealt.

IN RETROSPECT: THE TRAGEDY AND LESSONS OF VIETNAM, Robert McNamara. Vintage, 1996. $16

   McNamara assumes responsibility for failing to address the contradictions and other unexamined assumptions and undebated disagreements that plagued decision making. He identifies "eleven major causes for our disaster in Vietnam" and six points when the U.S. could legitimately have withdrawn.

INTERNATIONAL HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM WAR, R. B. Smith. St. Martins Press, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1991. $17-45.

   Places Vietnam within a global context.

LONELY PLANET VIETNAM, Mason Florence and Robert Storey. Lonely Planet, 1999. $16.15

   Although a travel guide, it has historical, cultural, current, economic and political information.

SACRED WILLOW: FOUR GENERATIONS IN THE LIFE OF A VIETNAMESE FAMILY, Mai Elliott. Oxford, 2000. $17

   A Vietnamese-American woman provides an extraordinary narrative woven from the lives of four generations of her family that illuminates fascinating--and until now unexplored--strands of Vietnamese history.

SHADOWS AND WIND: A VIEW OF MODERN VIETNAM, Robert Templer. Penguin, 1999. $13.95

   Drawing on hundreds of interviews in Vietnam and years of research, Robert Templer has produced the first in-depth examination of the problems facing modern Vietnam. Shadows and Wind is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the Vietnam that now has emerged from a century of conflict with both foreign powers and with itself.

UNDERSTANDING VIETNAM, Neil L. Jamison. University of California Press, 1993 $19

   Focuses on modern Vietnamese history and Western intervention in that country from the French.

VIETNAM: A HISTORY, Stanley Karnow. Viking Penguin 1997. $18

   Moves from the earliest recorded Chinese settlement in Vietnam, in 208 B.C., to the rooftop evacuation of the United States Embassy in Saigon in 1975.

VIETNAM NOTEBOOK, Murray Hiebert. Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1995. $18

   Insights into the country - stories, vignettes by an observer who lived in Vietnam many years.

WHAT SHOULD WE TELL OUR CHILDREN ABOUT VIETNAM? Bill McCloud. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. $20

   To find answers to the question facing junior high school teacher and Vietnam veteran Bill McCloud as he prepared to teach his students about the war, he went to the people who directed, fought, protested, and reported the war: politicians, military officers, protestors, soldiers, POWs, nurses, refugees, scholars, writers, and parents of soldiers who died in the war.

VIETCONG MEMOIR: AN INSIDE ACCOUNT OF THE WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH, Truong Nhu Tang with David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai. Random, 1986. $14

   By showing the nature and hidden strength of our opponents, this account goes a long way toward explaining why America failed in Vietnam despite its greatly superior military power.

VIETNAM WARS 1945 - 1990, Marilyn Young. Harper Perennial,1991. $14

   It plots how America got into Vietnam, based on a particular misunderstanding of a culture and unquestioned assumptions.

VIETNAM: A COUNTRY STUDY. Ronald J. Cima, editor. Library of Congress, 1987.

AS SEEN BY BOTH SIDES: AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE ARTISTS LOOK AT THE WAR, C. David Thomas, Editor. U MA, 1991. $24.95

AFTER VIETNAM: LEGACIES OF A LOST WAR, Charles E. Neu, Editor. Johns Hopkins, 2000. $14.95

   Explores the Vietnam War and the transformation of America ; the impact of the Vietnam War on the U.S. military; moral and policy challenges for a new world.

NOBLE CAUSE? AMERICA AND THE VIETNAM WAR, Gerard J. De Groot. Longman, 1999. $30.73

   The military events, the political and strategic contexts, and the social and cultural impact of the Vietnam War are all brought together in this single, compellingly readable study. As well as breadth and inclusiveness, the author has new things to say on -- the nature of the communist revolution and the communist way of war; the flaws in US Strategy and tactics; how these flaws affected the soldier on the ground; and the legacy of the war for Vietnam and America alike.

VIETNAM AND AMERICA: A DOCUMENTED HISTORY, Marvin Gettleman,Jane Franklin, Marilyn Young, Bruce Franklin, Eds. Grove Press, 1995. $17

   This complete history of the Vietnam War, as documented in essays by leading experts and in original source material, presents selections from the documented record, dispels distortions, and illuminates in depth both sides of the history of America's encounter with Vietnam.

AMERICAN'S WAR IN VIETNAM: A SHORT NARRATIVE HISTORY, Larry H. Addington. Indiana, 2000. $13

   History of the origins, course, and outcome of America's military involvement in Vietnam

   begins with a history of Vietnam before and after French occupation, the Cold War origins of American involvement, the domestic impact of American policies on public support, and the reasons for the ultimate failure of U.S. policy.

CHASING THE TIGERS; A PORTRAIT OF THE NEW VIETNAM. Murray Hiebert, Joshua Sitzer , Editor. Kodansha International, 1996. $25.

   Focusing on the nation's recent economic reforms and their impact on the lives of everyday Vietnamese offers assessments of the status of Vietnam's environmental problems, rural poverty, sexual mores, family structure, health care, education, religion, and women's rights and analyzes the nation's foreign relations with China, Cambodia, and the US Portrays Vietnam in a generally favorable light.

LIMITS OF POWER: THE UNITED STATES IN VIETNAM, Choices for the 21st Century, $15.

   Draws participants into the key decision points marking US involvement in the Vietnam War. Historical background and original documents recreate the assumptions and mindsets shaping American foreign policy during the Vietnam War years.

WAR EVERYONE LOST-AND WON-AMERICA'S INTERVENTION IN VIET NAM'S TWIN STRUGGLES, Timothy J. Lomperis. Washington, D.C., Congressional Quarterly Press, 1992.

   Explores that the key conflict in Vietnam entailed the struggle for national legitimacy in the eyes of the South Vietnamese people, Lomperis holds that the Communists never really won that legitimacy, a fact that explains their need after 1968 to shift from the strategy of people's war to conventional combat.

United States

AFTER VIETNAM: LEGACIES OF A LOST WAR, Charles E. Neu, Editor . Johns Hopkins, 2000. $14.95

   Explores how the Vietnam War transformed America

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY SINCE THE VIETNAM WAR; THE SEARCH FOR CONSENSUS FROM NIXON TO CLINTON, Richard A. Melanson. M.E. Sharpe, 1996. $32.95

   Describes and evaluates the foreign policy strategies and tactics of the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, emphasizing the efforts each of these presidents made to sell their policies to an increasingly skeptical Congress and public.

ARGUMENT WITHOUT END: IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS TO THE VIETNAM TRAGEDY, Robert S. McNamara, et al. Public Affairs, 1999. $22

   Readers will get the sense of observing a graduate-level seminar on the war, with some of its most knowledgeable participants and critics making presentations.

AZTLAN AND VIET NAM: CHICANO AND CHICANA EXPERIENCES OF THE WAR., George Mariscal, Editor. U of CA, 1999. $19

   Reflects both the soldiers' experience and the antiwar movement at home. Taken together, they illustrate the contradictions faced by the traditionally patriotic Mexican American community, and show us the war and the grassroots opposition to it from a new perspective --one that goes beyond the familiar dichotomy of black and white America.

DEBATE OVER VIETNAM. David W. Levy. Johns Hopkins, 1991. $15

   Considers how Americans reached some general agreements about their foreign policy, got involved , disagreed and destroyed consensus, and debated.

MULTICULTURAL PORTRAIT OF THE VIETNAM WAR, David K. Wright. Benchmark Books, 1996. $24

   Examines the participation of native peoples, African Americans, other minorities, and women as they served overseas or dealt with the upheavals of war on the American home front.

STORMY SEAS WE BRAVE; CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS BY UPROOTED PEOPLE. Moussa, Helen, ed. WCC, 1998. $19.90

   Shares the poems, lyrics, reflections, drama and visual art of refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants so that they can express for themselves their own understanding of the violence that has uprooted them and their struggle to nourish their roots at the same time as they try to rebuild their lives.

Identifying Missional Opportunities

ACTIVISTS BEYOND BORDER: ADVOCACY NETWORKS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink. Cornell, 1998. $16

   Examines a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. Their targets may be international organizations or the policies of particular states. Historical examples of such transborder alliances include anti-slavery and woman suffrage campaigns. In the past two decades, national activism has had a significant impact in human rights,

BEYOND BORDERS: REFUGEES, MIGRANTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA, Elizabeth G. Ferris. WCC Publications, 1993. $17

BEYOND VIOLENCE. Gerard A. Vanderhaar. Twenty-Third Publications, 1998. $12.95. Service Center #3105

   The author gives practical suggestions for living and working justly and courageously in a non-violent way in a world full of violence.

BEYOND IMPUNITY: AN ECUMENICAL APPROACH TO TRUTH, JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION. Jacques, Genevieve. WCC, 2000. $6.50

   Reflects on the experience of people in many parts of the world and challenges churches to reach across traditional boundaries and join others in the search for new paths towards genuine justice, repentance, and reconciliation.

BLOWBACK - THE COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICAN EMPIRE, Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan Books, 2000. $20

   Describes the unintended consequences of American activity and is a call for the United States to rethink its position in the world as it has largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted to military force and financial manipulation.

CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM, THE, Robert Gilpin and Jean M. Gilpin. Princeton, 2000. $30

   Explores the monetary and trading systems of a global economy, the vulnerabilities and the relationships to Asia, Europe and America.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT, 2000, UN Development Programme. New York, Oxford, 2000. $23.

   An annual that looks at human rights as an intrinsic part of development and as a means of human rights. Shows how human rights bring principles of accountability and social justice to the process of human development.

LAND MINES; 100 MILLION HIDDEN KILLERS (Issues in Focus), Elaine Landau. Enslow Publishers, 2000. $21

LOCAL CHURCH IN A GLOBAL ERA: REFLECTIONS FOR A NEW CENTURY. Stackhouse, Max L, Tim A. Dearborn, and Scott R. Paeth, editors. Eerdmans, 2000. $18

   Explores how the church is affected by globalization, the effect of more direct contact between the world religions and Christians, examine the relation of Christian theology and ethics to global changes in the family, economics, technology, education, the media, and other key spheres of life.

MAKING A JUST PEACE: HUMAN RIGHTS & DOMINATION SYSTEMS by C. Dale White. Abingdon Press, 1998. $14. Service Center # 3072

   Bishop White draws on his own experience of working for peace and human rights in The United Methodist Church to address systems that lead to hunger, war and the making of drylands and deserts. Biblically based, it contains questions for study and discussion.

RECONCILIATION OF PEOPLES: CHALLENGES TO THE CHURCHES, THE. Gregory Baum and Harold Wells, editors. MARC(www.marcpublications.com), 1997. $18

   Reports on efforts of church based groups to foster reconciliation between former combatants.

RECONCILIATION: OUR GREATEST CHALLENGE - OUR ONLY HOPE. Curtiss Paul DeYoung. Judson Press, 1997. $15. Service Center #3158

   This timely book addresses the problem of division and animosity, and issues a call for radical commitment to reconciliation as a fundamental mandate of the Gospel of Christ.

SOWING THE DRAGON'S TEETH: LANDMINES AND THE GLOBAL LEGACY OF WAR. Philip C. Winslow. Beacon, 1997. Service Center #3089 $13

   Introduces readers to people who have been killed or maimed by land mines and to those working to clear the fields of these weapons that victimize people each year.

TO WALK WITHOUT FEAR: THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT TO BAN LANDMINES, Maxwell A. Cameron, Robert J. Lawson, and Brian W. Tomlin, eds. Oxford, 1999. $24.95

   It brings together leading academics, senior policy makers, and prominent leaders of on-governmental organizations (NGOs) to examine and draw lessons from the "Ottawa Process" that culminated in December 1997 when over 120 states (though NOT the United States, Russia, or China) signed a convention to ban the use, sale, and production of landmines.