A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War

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Oxford University Press, Aug 15, 2006 - History - 288 pages
The Vietnam War left wounds that have taken three decades to heal--indeed some scars remain even today. In A Time for Peace, prominent American historian Robert D. Schulzinger sheds light on how deeply etched memories of this devastating conflict have altered America's political, social, and cultural landscape. Schulzinger examines the impact of the war from many angles. He traces the long, twisted, and painful path of reconciliation with Vietnam, the heated controversy over soldiers who were missing in action, the influx of over a million Vietnam refugees into the US, and the plight of Vietnam veterans, many of whom returned home alienated, unhappy, and unappreciated. Schulzinger looks at how the controversies of the war have continued to be fought in books and films and, perhaps most important, he explores the power of the Vietnam metaphor on foreign policy, particularly in Central America, Somalia, the Gulf War, and the war in Iraq. Using a vast array of sources, A Time for Peace provides an illuminating account of a war that still looms large in the American imagination.
 

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Contents

Preface
Bitterness Between the United States and Vietnam 19751980
Estrangement and Détente 19801988
Normalization 19892000
Vietnam Veterans Readjustment
Vietnam Veterans Memorials and Memories
The Vietnamese in America
The Burden of Memory in Vietnam Literature
Vietnam Memories Through Film
The Living Legacy of the Vietnam
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About the author (2006)

Robert D. Schulzinger is College Professor of Distinction of History and International Affairs at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The author of many books on the history of U.S. foreign relations and politics, including A Time For War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975 (OUP, 1997), he is a former President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Editor-In-Chief of Diplomatic History.

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