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Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Man of Faith -- 2. New Beginnings -- 3. The Making of an Alliance -- 4. Revolutions and Republics -- 5. Settlers and Engineers -- 6. Countering Insurgents -- 7. Limited Partners -- 8. Mixed Signals -- 9. The Unmaking of an Alliance -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Published Collections of Government Documents -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

During the fall of 1962, the American war correspondent Richard Tregaskis spent three months in South Vietnam. InVietnam diary, published the following year, Tregaskis offered vivid descriptions of his experiences, which included joining South Vietnamese army troops on combat missions against 'Viet Cong' fighters, as well as observing an election inside one of the Saigon government's newly built 'strategic hamlets'. But the main purpose ofVietnam diarywas to detail the author's many encounters with Americans in South Vietnam — specifically the US soldiers, marines, and other military personnel serving as advisers to the South Vietnamese Army. Tregaskis greatly admired these Americans, whom he portrayed as indomitable Cold Warriors. He was particularly impressed with Lieutenant Dave Marr, a Marine intelligence officer he met at a US base in the city of Da Nang. Lt Marr, whom Tregaskis described as a 'slim blond youth' from California, spoke excellent Vietnamese, thanks to a year of intensive language training. He also displayed a marked 'enthusiasm for things Vietnamese'. Tregaskis noted that Marr was rather less optimistic than many of his peers about the prospects for success against the communist enemy. 'The best you can say is that we're holding our own,' the marine told the journalist.

AbstractScholars have portrayed the 1963 'Buddhist crisis' in South Vietnam as a struggle for religious freedom, as a political conspiracy, or as a manifestation of ancient religious beliefs and practices. This paper, in contrast, argues that the crisis emerged from a clash of modernizing visions. The Buddhist-led protests that took place in South Vietnam in 1963 were linked to the Vietnamese Buddhist revival, a nationalist reform movement that began during the early twentieth century. The protests also reflected growing Buddhist anxieties about the Ngo Dinh Diem government's nation-building agenda for South Vietnam. By the time the crisis began, Buddhist leaders had concluded that this agenda (which Diem referred to as the 'Personalist Revolution') was incompatible with their plans to realize Vietnam's destiny as a 'Buddhist nation'. In addition to reinterpreting the origins of the crisis, this paper examines how the course of events was shaped by the personalities and agendas of particular Buddhist and government leaders, and especially by fierce rivalries among members of Diem's family. These internal tensions help to explain the failure of attempts to end the crisis through negotiations, as well as Diem's decision to crush the movement by force in August 1963.

This paper examines the recent debate between historians Keith Taylor and Robert Buzzanco over the interpretation of the Vietnam War and considers the implications of the debate for the future of Vietnam War studies. Miller analyzes Taylor and Buzzanco's differences over the origins and evolution of the war, and finds that both historians rely too heavily on the Cold War to explain the motives and actions of leaders and groups who participated in the conflict. The paper concludes with a proposal to reconceptualize the war as a contest among the multiple ways of thinking about modernization.

This article challenges existing interpretations of Ngô Dình Diêm by examining his activities during the decade before he became leader of South Vietnam in 1954. Diêm actively pursued power in these years, and he achieved it mainly due to his own efforts and to those of his Vietnamese allies. At the same time, he and his brother Ngô Dình Nhu were outlining the distinctive vision of modernisation which would inform South Vietnam's post-1954 nation-building strategies.

'Inventing Money: The Story of Long Term Capital Management and the Legends Behind It,' by Nicholas Dunbar, is reviewed.