American Nation-Building and Environmental Change in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

FAIN: FT-55221-07

David Andrew Biggs
Regents of the University of California, Riverside (Riverside, CA 92521-0001)

The Mekong Delta was vital economically and strategically to American and South Vietnamese nation-building efforts from 1954 to 1975. While many studies have focused on the political, diplomatic and military aspects of American intervention here, few have considered the environmental contexts in which these campaigns were situated or how specific projects such as resettlement or infrastructure modernization have had lasting legacies on post-war development in the region. This project aims to use period American military and civil records to better understand social and physical dimensions of a changing agricultural environment during the conflict and after.

Associated Products

Quagmire (Nation Building and Nature inthe Mekong Delta) (Book)
Title: Quagmire (Nation Building and Nature inthe Mekong Delta)
Author: David Biggs
Abstract: In the twentieth century, the Mekong Delta emerged as one of Vietnam's most important economic regions. Its swamps, marshes, creeks, and canals played a major role in Vietnam's turbulent past, from the struggles of colonialism, to the Cold War, and to the present day. Quagmire considers these struggles, their antecedents, and their legacies from the perspective of environmental history.
Year: 2010
Publisher: The University of Washington Press
Type: Other

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