Breaking from the Colonial Mold: Water Engineering and the Failure of Nation-Building in the Plain of Reeds, Vietnam

摘要

Amid such cumulative destruction in Saigon during the Vietnam War, American nation-building, a term used to describe many different efforts to reengineer Vietnamese landscapes and society from 1954 to 1975, is popularly considered yet another victim of defeat. Yet the introduction of new technologies performed under the rubric of nation-building has had a lasting influence, as the current government continues to build new infrastructure outwards from sites created in past eras. Biggs discusses American nation-building efforts in Vietnam in a broader historical context, recognizing that the massive infusion of technology and the proliferation of technical training programs had profound effects on Vietnamese people and places.