The Vietnam War: Did Anyone Win?

Despite Old Testament injunctions not to "study war any more," in this course we will do exactly that, through the particular lens of America's experience in Vietnam. We will learn the war's contested history; compare cultures and goals of the primary antagonist groups, Vietnamese and American; talk with soldiers who fought, and activists who resisted; explore the war in popular culture; and examine complicating factors: race and civil rights, class and the draft, and women's under-reported roles. We will conclude by assessing war's costs, and debating the "lessons" Vietnam has to teach.