Secure Returns Of War: South Vietnam And The Price Of Refugee Memory Developed By Long T Bui Accessible As Mobi

offer the highest praise one can of an academic text, I have referred to it in my own writing and it proved very useful, His discussion of reeducation in relation to refugee camps really supported my own engagement with the topic in my dissertation, Bringing the concept of filial debt and the debt of freedom into conversation is outstanding, I refer to him in a chapter I just wrote to develop this idea further, I am impressed with the way he dealt with the

dizzying array of meanings to which "Vietnamization" has been applied, His book covers a lot of ground so some of the chapters are less relevant to my interests, but each chapter engaged me.
He took care of the only thing that wearied me as a reader in his epilogue, which does a very nice job of summing up how he uses "Vietnamization," with this wonderful and true sentence: "If the contents and arguments of this book bear too much repetition, it is because there is no easy way of speaking about South Vietnam, the Vietnam War, empire, and refugees without returning to the same points again and again in a cycle of loss, memory, and trauma.
" He compiled a really strong bibliography, Finally, I am deeply impressed with his clearheaded engagement with South Viet Nam a distinct accomplishment! The legacy and memory of wartime South Vietnam through the eyes of Vietnamese refugees



In, South Vietnam fell to communism, marking a stunning conclusion to the Vietnam War.
Although this former ally of the United States has vanished from the world map, Long T, Bui maintains that its memory endures for refugees with a strong attachment to this ghost country, Blending ethnography with oral history, archival research, and cultural analysis, Returns of War considers
that only existed for twenty years is being kept alive by its dispersed
stateless exiles.



Returns of War argues that Vietnamizationas Richard Nixon termed it inand the end of South Vietnam signals more than an example of flawed American military strategy, but a larger allegory of power, providing cover for U.
S. imperial losses while denoting the inability of the South Vietnamese and other colonized nations to become independent, modern liberal subjects, Bui argues that the collapse of South Vietnam under Vietnamization complicates the already difficult memory of the Vietnam War, pushing for a critical understanding of South Vietnamese agency beyond their status as the war's ultimate "losers.
" Examining the lasting impact of Cold War military policy and culture upon the "Vietnamized" afterlife of war, this book weaves questions of national identity, sovereignty, and selfdetermination to consider the generative possibilities of theorizing South Vietnam as an incomplete, ongoing search for political and personal freedom.
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