The Unimagined Community: Imperialism and Culture in South Vietnam

Nearly half a century after it ended, the Vietnam War continues to be understood as a contest between communism and democracy as well as between Marxism and nationalism. In this talk hosted by the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University, Duy Lap Nguyen proposes a fundamental revision to this conventional view. Instead, he sees the First Republic not as a reactionary regime but a radical one whose principal aim was to empower the Vietnamese peasantry by isolating the urban elite and initiating a social revolution against the communist insurgency in the countryside.

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