2014/06/01 by David Hunt · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis #Miller #Vietnamese #Power (physics) #Politics #Government (linguistics) #Vietnam War #Political science #Economic history #Law #Political economy #Sociology #History #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.1093/ahr/119.3.941
openalex publication_date 2014/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Edward Miller has written an important and fascinating book on the career of Ngo Dinh Diem and his troubled and ultimately disastrous relations with the United States. In hopes of moving beyond the simplistic views found in earlier work, Miller shows how Diem understood Catholicism and Confucianism and attempted to adapt them to current realities. He and his brother Nhu forged alliances “across sectarian, political, and regional lines” (p. 33) that enabled them to take power after the 1954 Geneva Accords. Diem ignored American recommendations in favor of broadening the base of the government and instead adopted a divide-and-conquer approach, playing rivals off against each other, then neutralizing them one by one. U.S. support helped, Miller argues, but Diem deserves the bulk of the credit for establishment of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) in 1955. The book focuses on struggles between Saigon and Washington over “nation building” in Vietnam and disagreements within as well as between the two governments. Diem and Nhu were not reactionaries. The settler communities, agrovilles, and strategic hamlets that they sponsored were “high-modernist” plans to remake Vietnamese society. When Americans insisted on their own schemes, the brothers were quick to object that the United States was trying to turn Vietnam into a “protectorate” (p. 229).