Synonyms
Definition/Description
Overview of the war, from its causes to the implementation of the peace agreement, from the viewpoint of international history. The connections of this war with the overall development of the Cold War, in Europe as well as in Asia, are a fundamental characteristic of this colonial conflict.
Introductory Paragraph
The peculiarity of the French Indochina war among conflicts of decolonization consists in the intensity of its connections with the general diplomatic history of the period. This is why the history of the war has benefited invaluably from the international history of the Cold War which has developed since the early 1990s. Furthermore, very recent openings of archives provide information on the decision-making process of the French and Vietnamese communist parties. The present entry synthetizes these findings.
The war can be divided in two distinct periods. Up to June, 1950, it was a colonial struggle...
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Further Reading
Ang, C. G. (2018). Southeast Asia’s cold war: An interpretive history. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Brocheux, P., & Hémery, D. (2009). Indochina: An ambiguous colonization, 1858–1954 (trans: Dill-Klein, L. L., Jennings, E., Taylor, N., Toussignan, N.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cadeau, I. (2015). La guerre d’Indochine: De l’Indochine française aux adieux à Saigon, 1940–1956. Paris: Tallandier.
Calkins, L. M. (2013). China and the first Vietnam war, 1947–1954. London: Routledge.
Cesari, L. (2013). Le problème diplomatique de l’Indochine 1945–1957. Paris: Les Indes savantes.
Chandler, D. P. (1993). The tragedy of Cambodian history: Politics, war, and revolution since 1945. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Chapman, J. M. (2013). Cauldron of resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Codaccioni, V. (2013). Punir les opposants: PCF et procès politiques. Paris: CNRS Editions.
Deuve, J. (2000). Le Laos: 1945–1949: Contribution à l’histoire du mouvement Lao Issala. Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry.
Deuve, J. (2003). Le royaume du Laos, 1949–1965: Histoire événementielle de l’indépendance à la guerre américaine. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Gaiduk, I. V. (2003). Confronting Vietnam: Soviet policy toward the Indochina conflict, 1954–1963. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, and Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Goscha, C. E. (2011a). Historical dictionary of the Indochina war (1945–1954): An international and interdisciplinary approach. Copenhagen: NIAS Press.
Goscha, C. (2011b). Vietnam: Un Etat né de la guerre. Paris: Armand Colin.
Guillemot, F. (2012). Dai Viêt: Indépendance et révolution au Viêt-Nam: L’échec de la troisième voie, 1938–1955. Paris: Les Indes savantes.
Guillemot, F. (2014). Des Vietnamiennes dans la guerre civile: L’autre moitié de la guerre 1945–1975. Paris: Les Indes savantes.
Lawrence, M. A. (2007). Assuming the burden: Europe and the American commitment to war in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Logevall, F. (2012). Embers of war: The fall of an empire and the making of America’s Vietnam. New York: Random House.
Marr, D. G. (1995). Vietnam 1945: The quest for power. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Marr, D. G. (2013). Vietnam: State, war, revolution: 1945–1946. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Miller, E. G. (2013). Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the fate of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Roy, D. (2016). Partenaire et ennemie: La Chine face au Vietnam 1949–1979. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval.
Ruscio, A. (2002). La guerre « française » d’Indochine (1945–1954): Les sources de la connaissance: bibliographie, filmographie, documents divers. Paris: Les Indes savantes.
Statler, K. C. (2007). Replacing France: The origins of American intervention in Vietnam. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
Tenenbaum, E. (2018). Partisans et centurions: Une histoire de la guerre irrégulière au 20e siècle. Paris: Perrin.
Tertrais, H. (2002). La piastre et le fusil: Le coût de la guerre d’Indochine 1945–1954. Paris: Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France.
Thomas, M. (2014). Fight or flight: Britain, France, and their roads from empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tonnesson, S. (2010). Vietnam 1946: How the war began. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Turpin, F. (2005). De Gaulle, les gaullistes et l’Indochine1940–1956. Paris: Les Indes savantes.
Villatoux, P., & Villatoux, M.-C. (2005). La République et son armée face au « péril subversif » : Guerre et action psychologiques en France (1945–1960). Paris: Les Indes savantes.
Vu, T. (2017). Vietnam’s communist revolution: The powers and limits of ideology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Waite, J. (2012). The end of the first Indochina war: A global history. New York: Routledge.
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Cesari, L. (2019). French Indochinese War, 1945–1954. In: Ness, I., Cope, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_151-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_151-1
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