The Vietnam War: Teaching Approaches and Resources (Contributions in Military Studies)

In many secondary schools, colleges, and universities across the country, the study of the Vietnam War has become a standard part of the curriculum. In this work, editor Marc Jason Gilbert has organized essays that are designed to serve the needs of the instructors currently teaching or planning to institute such courses. Each essay, written by a leading scholar in his or her field, addresses specific teaching strategies and resources, surveying approaches and providing a detailed examination of those issues that teachers have identified as the most useful or important.The book seeks to furnish instructors with the methods to present the war's broad perspective and complexity to a classroom. It begins with a discussion of some of the major interpretive stances, approaches, and issues that may be pursued in teaching about Vietnam. Subsequent chapters address the operational issues of the air war and misconceptions concerning guerilla war and counterinsurgency; the nature of people's wars; the effectiveness of decision-making and foreign policy-making analysis as classroom learning techniques; the need to place the war in the context of Indochinese, American, and world history; the use of teaching strategies and resources derived from literature, film, and the voice of the veteran; the use of Asian, European, and American literary sources to gain insight into the experience of the Vietnamese people; the anti-war movement; issues of peace, sex, and ethnicity; the integration of such approaches and issues into a course on the war; the use of materials drawn from the Vietnam War to further students' analytical skills; innovative ways of bringing primary printed sources into the classroom; and the strength and weaknesses of Vietnam War classroom texts and key monographs. The book concludes with a guide to further resources and a selection of Vietnam War course syllabi employed by scholars active in the field. This work will be a major resource for teachers and those studying to be teachers, as well as for courses on the Vietnam War, Southeast Asia, and U.S. History and Politics.