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"Since the 1950s, the domestic politics of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) has puzzled outside observers. To these external analysts, the American-backed regime seemed to be plagued by instability and factionalism for no apparent reason. Their bewilderment, however, has obscured a deep and complex history. In Disunion, Nu-Anh Tran shows how factional struggles in the Saigon-based republic reflected serious disagreements about political ideas at a pivotal moment in the lead-up to the Vietnam War. The book traces the emergence of Vietnam's anticommunist nationalists back to the struggle for independence and explores how their alliances were tested and then broken during the rule of the RVN's first president, Ngô Đình Diệm. The anticommunists rejected the authoritarianism and ideology of the Vietnamese communists and dreamed of building an independent, democratic government that would unite the Vietnamese nation. The RVN was supposed to be the fulfillment of this long-cherished vision. But discord soon erupted among the anticommunists. Politicians fiercely debated to what extent the government should be democratic and which groups had a legitimate place in political life. The unresolved disagreements provoked intense and continuous infighting that troubled the RVN throughout the regime's existence. Ultimately, the animosity undermined any possibility of realizing the anticommunists' shared vision for the country. Based on previously neglected primary sources and extensive research in Vietnamese and American archives, Disunion paints a rich and sensitive portrayal of leaders and activists in the RVN. Anticommunist nationalists were deeply devoted to their homeland and inspired by forward-looking visions, but they were also hobbled by their failure to live up to their lofty ideals. By examining these historical figures on their own terms, the book offers a fresh perspective on the political history of South Vietnam that has remained misunderstood to this day"--

The Caravelle Manifesto of 1960 is arguably the most famous document ever produced by the political opposition in the Republic of Vietnam. Although domestically censored at the time, a published translation of the manifesto appeared abroad and became the standard version of the document in the English-speaking world. Yet this widely available translation is profoundly flawed. I have located what appears to be the original Vietnamese version, and I authenticate it through internal textual analysis and a comparison with earlier, more obscure translations. I urge scholars to adopt this version as the new standard and offer a more accurate translation.

The Denounce the Communists Campaign (1955–c.1960) was a key moment in the conflict between the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the Vietnamese communist movement and would eventually escalate to become the Vietnam War. The RVN launched the campaign to turn public opinion against communism and destroy the underground communist network. Building on previous scholarship, this article examines the propaganda associated with the initiative. During the campaign, state propagandists and allied intellectuals developed a historical narrative about the Anti-French Resistance (1945–54) that vilified the communists. Although highly partisan, the narrative illuminates the longer history of violence between communists and anti-communists in Vietnam.

The famous writer and revolutionary Nhất Linh (Nguyễn Tường Tam) committed suicide on July 7, 1963, in protest against Ngô Đình Diệm, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam). Although largely ignored by Western scholars, the suicide was a major catalyst for the growing resistance to Ngô Đình Diệm and contributed to a deeper transformation of Vietnamese political culture. Even decades after the collapse of the RVN, the event remains central to the historical memory of the Vietnamese diaspora.

The conventional scholarship depicts noncommunist nationalism in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam, 1954-1963) as weak or inauthentic, especially when compared to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, or North Vietnam). But such arguments assume that Vietnamese nationalism was singular and unitary. This essay reinterprets wartime nationalism by proposing the concept of contested nationalism. Specifically, it examines how the Republican government combined anticommunism with Vietnamese cultural identity in its cultural policy. Geography education, new cultural institutions, and historical preservation helped promoted the RVN as the exclusive embodiment of Vietnamese culture and challenged the DRV's legitimacy.

This paper explores representations of political and cultural identity within journalistic discourse about the American presence in the South Vietnamese newspaper Chíính Luun [Political Discussion] from 1965 to 1969. The encounter with Americans prompted Vietnamese writers to highlight the distinctive nature of their own culture, to define their national identity based on an imagined history and the image of proper Vietnamese womanhood, and to delineate normative boundaries of group membership. These constructions of identity represent certain continuities with the colonial era but were clearly modified by the dialogical relationship and unequal alliance between the United States and the Republic of Vietnam.