OSHER 45 - The 20th Century Wars in Vietnam

This course will begin by examining the French colonial activities and their resultant Franco-Vietminh War that occurred from 1946 to 1954. Following this exploration, lectures topics will include a period of U.S. advisors' activities in South Vietnam, President Lyndon Baines Johnson's years of escalating the war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army, then President Richard M. Nixon's withdrawal from Vietnam, and finally America's traumatic exit from South Vietnam and the aftermath of having lost the war. One feature of the course will be a Vietnam veteran discussing his experiences and anthropological studies on the people he worked with in Vietnam.