Overview

Using recently released archival materials, Replacing France explains how and why the United States came to assume control as the dominant western power in Vietnam during the 1950s. Kathryn C. Statler examines diplomatic maneuvers in Paris, Washington, London, and Saigon to detail how Western alliance members failed to work together against the Communist threat. Motivated by a deep belief in the inherent superiority of their own cultures, both the United States and France sought to transform South Vietnam into a modern, westernized, and democratic ally. Although the United States ultimately replaced France, efforts to build South Vietnam into a nation failed. Instead, the Eisenhower administration created a dependent client state that was unable to withstand increasing Communist aggression from the north. Replacing France is a fundamental reassessment of the origins of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

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9780813193304

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Reviews

<p> In powerfully illuminating the understudied era between the wars, [the book] is now the essential starting point for all future scholarship on this period. --Mark Philip Bradley, International Review of History --

If you're curious about how we got into the mess that was Vietnam, Kathryn C. Statler has answers in Replacing France: The Origins of the American Intervention in Vietnam. Statler delivers a fairly clear and concise narrative...earning this volume a place on any Vietnam bookshelf. -- HistoryNet In powerfully illuminating the understudied era between the wars, [the book] is now the essential starting point for all future scholarship on this period. --Mark Philip Bradley, International Review of History -- One comes away from this book deeply impressed by Statler's research and her ability to piece together a complicated narrative from many hundreds of documents. --Andrew J. Rotter, American Historical Review -- Statler's book is well-written and thoroughly researched. Any scholar studying American foreign policy or the Vietnam War would find this work a valuable resource. --Kevin M. Brady, On Point -- [Statler] convincingly argues that the inability of France and the US to agree on a common policy in Indochina and against the communist threat in general caused the US to replace France as a major Western power in Vietnam. --L. M. Les, Choice -- This detailed, thoroughly researched book is a pleasure to read. The prose is so lively that the reader progresses easily through this complicated story. Professor Statler offers her judgments after carefully laying out the available evidence and citing the work of scholars with conflicting interpretations. In its depth of scholarship, careful analysis and clear prose, Replacing France is an important complement to previous scholarship on the origins of the United States commitment in Vietnam. --Marianna P. Sullivan, Military History -- Statler's book does provide us with a fascinating, detailed and much needed account of the transition of power from France to the United States in South Vietnam while Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam controlled the North. --Peter Neville, Diplomacy and Statecraft -- Kathryn Statler... has written an erudite, well-researched, and deep and penetrating analysis of the process where in the United States replaced France as the 'colonial' power in Indo China, however inadvertently. This is a fascinating story, well told. --Capt. John F. O'Connell, Air Power History -- Overall, this is a well-conceived and deeply researched study that does much to illuminate the sources of tension in the Franco-American relationship over Vietnam, and the far from straightforward way that the United States supplanted (but did not replace completely) French influence in the years following defeat at Dien Bien Phu. --Matthew Jones, The Journal of American History -- In the crowded field of Vietnam scholarship, Statler offers something fresh and important. --Mark Atwood Lawrence, author of Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Co -- Kathryn Statler's Replacing France is an original interpretation of why and how the United States replaced France as the dominant Western power in Vietnam during the 1950s. This book will demand the attention of all scholars of American foreign policy and Vietnam War. --David F. Schmitz, Whitman College, author of The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, a --

In powerfully illuminating the understudied era between the wars, [the book] is now the essential starting point for all future scholarship on this period. --Mark Philip Bradley, International Review of History -- </p>

In powerfully illuminating the understudied era between the wars, [the book] is now the essential starting point for all future scholarship on this period. --Mark Philip Bradley, International Review of History --

One comes away from this book deeply impressed by Statler's research and her ability to piece together a complicated narrative from many hundreds of documents. -- Andrew J. Rotter American Historical Review

Author Information

Kathryn C. Statler is associate professor of history at the University of San Diego and coeditor of The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War.

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