WARS OF INDOCHINA

Saigon and Hanoi served as competing capitals of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) in the south and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in the north (1954-1975). They were symbols of warring states, one home to a fledgling republic, the other the seat of communist power. Since the late 19th century, they have also been sites of Vietnam’s most dramatic transformations. As such, they occupy an important place in the historiography of modern Vietnam, not least in ongoing debates over the Indochina wars, Vietnamese nationalism, and regional difference.

This course examines Saigon and Hanoi as social, political, and cultural spaces, and as representations of their respective states during the war. We first consider the significance of regionalism in fashioning “new ways of being Vietnamese” and examine how colonial rule reinforced those distinctions. We devote the rest of the semester to reading an array of works on the history of these cities. For the colonial period, we examine colonial urbanism, the lives of the poor, intellectuals and their ideas, as well as currents of political agitation and cultural iconoclasm. For the post-World War II period, we will focus on the distinct political cultures that took shape in the RVN and DRV. Finally, we end by looking at Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and Hanoi in the post-war era, particularly after the Socialist Republic of Vietnam instituted sweeping economic reforms in the 1980s. Each week, we will discuss works social, cultural, and political history of Saigon and Hanoi, all the while keeping in mind their divergent trajectories in the three decades following World War II.