Revised 8/2023
HIS 277 - The American Experience in Vietnam (3 CR.)
Course Description
Analyzes American involvement in Vietnam from World War II with emphasis on the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon and Ford. Lecture 3 hours per week
General Course Purpose
Explain how and why the United States became involved in Vietnam within the broader context of US foreign policy in the 20th century.
Course Prerequisites/Corequisites
No prerequisites. Preferable, but not mandatory, that students complete HIS 121-122 prior to enrollment.
Course Objectives
- Identify major goals, events, personalities, and concepts that initiated and then sustained U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
- Analyze Vietnam’s quest for independence and French as well as U.S. foreign policy goals in the twentieth century.
- Provide students with an opportunity to examine the war through the perspectives of Vietnamese, French, and American soldiers and civilians as well as policy makers through a critical analysis of both primary and secondary sources.
- Encourage students to consider political, economic, military, ideological, and cultural issues from a national as well as global perspective.
Major Topics to Be Included
- An overview of Vietnamese history and Western colonialism (1880s to the 1940s)
- Origins of the Cold War and the First Indochina War (1945-1954)
- Nation Building in South Vietnam (1954-1961)
- Kennedy and Diem (1961-1963)
- Johnson’s Decisions for War and the United States at War (1963-1967)
- Tet Offensive (1968)
- A War for Peace: Nixon, Kissinger, and Vietnamization (1969-1973)
- Peace negotiations and the Anti-war movement
- End of American involvement and the Legacies of Vietnam
Optional Topics
- Vietnamese history prior to US involvement
- Postwar Vietnam syndrome
- Depiction of US involvement in film and literature