Looking Back on the Vietnam War embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why. Each essay examines a different facet of the Vietnam War, offering fresh insights on the war’s long-term psychological, social, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. By putting these diverse pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies.

Chronology

Note on the Text

Introduction: Looking Back at the Vietnam War

Brenda M. Boyle and Jeehyun Lim

Chapter 1: Vietnamese Refugees and Internet Memorials: When Does War End and Who Gets to Decide?

Y?n Lê Espiritu

Chapter 2: Broken, but Not Forsaken: Disabled South Vietnamese Veterans in Vietnam and the Vietnamese Diaspora

Quan Tue Tran

Chapter 3: What Is Vietnamese American Literature?

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Chapter 4: Vi?t Nam and the Diaspora: Absence, Presence, and the Archive

Lan Duong

Chapter 5: Liberal Humanitarianism and Post–Cold War Cultural Politics: The Case of Le Ly Hayslip

Jeehyun Lim

Chapter 6: Ann Hui’s Boat People: Documenting Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong

Vinh Nguyen

Chapter 7: “The Deep Black Hole”: Vietnam in the Memories of Australian Veterans and Refugees

Robert Mason and Leonie Jones

Chapter 8: Missing Bodies and Homecoming Spirits

Heonik Kwon

Chapter 9: Agent Orange: Toxic Chemical, Narrative of Suffering, Metaphor for War

Diane Niblack Fox

Chapter 10: Re-Seeing Cambodia and Recollecting The ’Nam: A Vertiginous Critique of the Military Sublime

Cathy J. Schlund-Vials

Chapter 11: Naturalizing War: The Stories We Tell about the Vietnam War

Brenda M. Boyle

Appendix A: Archives

Appendix B: Publications since 2000

Notes on Contributors

Index