Description
Product ID: | 9780801478901 |
Product Form: | Paperback / softback |
Country of Manufacture: | US |
Series: | The United States in the World |
Title: | Radicals on the Road |
Subtitle: | Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era |
Authors: | Author: Judy Tzu-Chun Wu |
Page Count: | 352 |
Subjects: | History of the Americas, History of the Americas, History, Political activism / Political engagement, Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, Political activism, USA, c 1960 to c 1970, c 1970 to c 1980 |
Description: | Wu analyzes how interactions among people from the U.S. and several East and Southeast Asian nations inspired transnational identities and multiracial coalitions that challenged political commitments during the Vietnam War era. Traveling to Hanoi during the U.S. war in Vietnam was a long and dangerous undertaking. Even though a neutral commission operated the flights, the possibility of being shot down by bombers in the air and antiaircraft guns on the ground was very real. American travelers recalled landing in blackout conditions, without lights even for the runway, and upon their arrival seeking refuge immediately in bomb shelters. Despite these dangers, they felt compelled to journey to a land at war with their own country, believing that these efforts could change the political imaginaries of other members of the American citizenry and even alter U.S. policies in Southeast Asia. In times of military conflict, heightened nationalism is the norm. Powerful institutions, like the government and the media, work together to promote a culture of hyperpatriotism. Some Americans, though, questioned their expected obligations and instead imagined themselves as "internationalists," as members of communities that transcended national boundaries. Their Asian political collaborators, who included Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government Nguyen Thi Binh and the Vietnam Women’s Union, cultivated relationships with U.S. travelers. These partners from the East and the West worked together to foster what Wu describes as a politically radical orientalist sensibility. By focusing on the travels of individuals who saw themselves as part of an international community of antiwar activists, Wu analyzes how actual interactions among people from several nations inspired transnational identities and multiracial coalitions and challenged the political commitments and personal relationships of individual activists. |
Imprint Name: | Cornell University Press |
Publisher Name: | Cornell University Press |
Country of Publication: | GB |
Publishing Date: | 2013-05-07 |