Led by: Prof. Fredrik Logevall (Harvard University)
Course Number: AMHI 660
Semesters: Spring 2026, Summer 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2019
Image: Photograph of Private Fred L. Greenleaf crossing a deep irrigation canal during Operation Bang Dong, by Robert C. Lafoon, November 21, 1967 (National Archives)
This course covers the long struggle for Vietnam waged between 1940 and 1975. Students will examine the conflict from various angles with particular attention to the period of direct American involvement. Beginning with French military efforts and concluding with American defeat, events will be considered in their relationship to Vietnam’s history, to US politics and society, and to the concurrent Cold War. Questions addressed will include: Why did the war happen? Why did the US become involved? How was the greatest military power in the world defeated? Could an alternative strategy have worked? How does the conflict continue to resonate with Americans?
Please note that the required books listed under course readings are finalized, but other aspects of the course syllabus are subject to change. We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase made through the Bookshop.org links provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Lecture 1: French Colonialism and Vietnamese Nationalism
Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor of History, Harvard University
A specialist on US foreign relations history and modern international history, Fredrik Logevall was previously the Anbinder Professor of History at Cornell University, where he also served as vice provost and as the director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Logevall is the author or editor of ten books, most recently JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956 (Random House, 2020). His book Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (Random House, 2012) won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History and the 2013 Francis Parkman Prize as well as the 2013 American Library in Paris Book Award and the 2013 Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations. A native of Stockholm, Sweden, Logevall holds a PhD in History from Yale University. He is a past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.