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: Here, we focus on one of those perspectives: that of the southerners who were made to feel that their lives before 1975 were a crime that needed to be punished, or a sin for which they needed to atone. We look at how they responded to life under a new system; some adapted, some found safe ways to resist, and some decided that their best or only hope was to leave to make a new life elsewhere. We also look at the dramatic changes that have taken place in Vietnam since economic reforms were introduced in 1986— changes that, according to recent surveys, have made Vietnam one of the most optimistic societies in the world. The changes have been so dramatic that Vietnam is now luring back some of the people who left—people who believed that post-war Vietnam had nothing to offer them. Background: The Road to War and Partition
In May 1975, the North Vietnamese government faced the daunting task of stitching back together a country torn apart by decades of war. This rupture had its roots in the period of French colonization (1858–1954), a bitter experience for the vast majority of Vietnamese that gave rise to various pro-independence movements. The most significant of these was the Indochinese Communist Party created by nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh in 1930.