Title: Vietnam After the War | Asia Pacific Curriculum
Headings: Vietnam After the War
Vietnam After the War
Overview
Prologue: The End of the “American War”
Introduction: The Challenges of Reconciliation
Background: The Road to War and Partition
Consolidating Political Control
Building a Socialist Economy
Resistance and Escape
Putting Post-War Vietnam in Context
Doi Moi and the “New” New Vietnam
Vietnamese Youth: Writing the Next Chapter
Acknowledgement

Content: They had “prevailed against all odds,” says historian Christopher Goscha, first beating the French in a violent war of de-colonization, then beating the Americans in one of the most brutal conflicts of the Cold War. 3
Introduction: The Challenges of Reconciliation
Civil wars result from, and sometimes deepen, divisions within societies. As Goscha observes, those divisions do not simply disappear once the fighting stops. 4 This was the case in Vietnam. Although some people in South Vietnam welcomed reunification and “liberation,” not everyone shared the feeling of triumph. For some, the war’s end raised uncomfortable questions: What kind of government would they have? Would the south have autonomy from the communist north? And what would happen to the people the communists viewed as enemies, such as capitalists and those who were associated with the South Vietnam government and its American or French backers?