Southeast Asia History

Noam Chomsky dismisses efforts to resurrect Camelot - an attractive American myth portraying JFK as a shining knight promising peace, foiled only by assassins bent on stopping this lone hero from withdrawing from Vietnam. Chomsky argues that US institutions an political culture, not individual presidents, are the key to understanding US behavior during the Vietnam War.

In 1971, while US ground forces were prohibited from crossing the Laotian border, a South Vietnamese Army corps, with US air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army's main logistical artery, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, at its hub, Tchepone in Laos, an operation that, according to General Creighton Abrams, could have been the decisive battle of the war. Hastening the withdrawal of US forces and ensuring the survival of South Vietnam.

Based on extensive interviews and archival material, The First Wave tells the story of the opposition in Singapore in its critical first thirty years in Parliament.

In the early 1970s, as US combat forces began to withdraw from Southeast Asia, South Vietnamese and Cambodian forces continued the fight against the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, more commonly known as the Viet Cong. Despite the evacuation of its ground troops, the United States promised to materially support its allies' struggle against communist aggression.

Dissects the aftermath of the war in Southeast Asia, the refugee problem, the Vietnam/Cambodia conflict, and the Pol Pot regime.

The English Governess at the Siamese Court, written in 1870, vividly recounts the experiences of one Anna Harriette Leonowens as governess for the sixty-plus children of King Mongkut of Siam, and translator and scribe for the King himself. Bright, young, and energetic, Leonowens was well-suited to her role and her writings convey a heartfelt interest in the lives, legends, and languages of Siam's rich and poor.

Hailed as a "pithy and compelling account of an intensely relevant topic" ( Kirkus Reviews), this wide-ranging volume offers a superb account of a key moment in modern U.S. and world history. Drawing upon the latest research in archives in China, Russia, and Vietnam, Mark Lawrence creates an extraordinary, panoramic view of all sides of the war.

Singapore is often known as a ‘clean’ country and its citizens ‘law-abiding’. However, every once in a while, the island has been shocked by an incident or a crime so unexpected and shocking, it grabs headlines and piques the interest of locals and international press alike. Spanning across all kinds of crimes, this collection has one thing in common–shock value.

A swamp warrior who served five tours in Vietnam tells it like it was in Death in the Jungle.

Are you curious about how the world has evolved to where it is today? Do you wish you made a better understanding of how all of the world is connected to each other? The history of the world can fascinate even the least interested party. For thousands of years, every culture and civilization has looked to the past to learn from history. History can inspire, teach, and provide an explanation for how things and institutions have come to be.

This book recounts 25 infamous crime cases that have taken place in Singapore since 1965. Some of the victims' names are still remembered today.

Among the famines of the Second World War, the Great Famine of Vietnam (1944-1945) remains little known outside of Vietnam, especially compared to its contemporaries in Bengal, Henan, and the Soviet Union. Though natural disasters catalyzed the famine, the scope of the famine was exacerbated by the brutal French extraction of resources in northern Vietnam at the command of the Japanese military. However, the famine's seeds were sown long before the disaster, with the arrival of the French in the Mekong Delta and their subsequent colonization of Dai Viet.

On February 15, 1942, the British surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army and handed over Singapore and surrounding Malaya countries. The conflict began on December 8, 1941, when Japanese forces bombed Singapore and continued to make their way through the treacherous Malayan jungle. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated during the attack, “the worst disaster and the largest capitulation in British history”.

Vietnam - Culture Smart! outlines the history, culture, and traditions of the Vietnamese. It explains certain deep-seated attitudes, describes some of the social and cultural changes now underway, and gives practical advice on what to expect and how to behave in unfamiliar situations. It aims to help you discover for yourself the warmth and vast potential of this fascinating country and its delightful people. They are open and friendly, with senses of humor and irony, and are frankly curious about the outside world.

Victory at Saipan was the key that opened the door to the soft underbelly of the Japanese Empire. Yet because the Japanese were aware of this vulnerability, they were willing to throw everything they had against the ever-encroaching American forces and fight to the death to defend this island.

During the course of a single day in 1569, Patik’s and Meno’s lives transformed from a routine of poverty and convention to lives filled with promise and adventure. On that day, a datu’s grandson killed their family and stole their land, and also on that day, Spanish explorer Miguel Lopez de Legaspi arrived in Panay.

Learn about how the dichotomous twins of idealism and pragmatism, of freedom and power, and of hope and fear are pitched against each other, wrestling for the future of Cambodia. This is Cambodia through the lens of human stories in what journalists and politicians have called 'gripping', 'a tour de force' and 'a must read'.

San Tran Croucher’s earliest memories are of fleeing ethnic attacks in her Vietnamese village, only to be later tortured in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. Katya Cengel met San when San was 75-years-old and living in California, having miraculously survived the Cambodian genocide with her three daughters, Sithy, Sithea, and Jennifer. But San’s family’s troubles didn’t end after their resettlement in California

The strategic potential of the three-day attack of two NVA regiments on Kham Duc—a remote and isolated Army Special Forces camp—on the eve of the first Paris peace talks in May 1968, was so significant that former President Lyndon Johnson included it in his memoirs. This gripping, original, eyewitness narrative and thoroughly researched analysis of a widely misinterpreted battle at the height of the Vietnam War radically contradicts all the other published accounts of it.

Kan een stad in je DNA zitten, ook al heeft je wieg er niet gestaan? In Moederstad gaat Philip Dröge in het moderne Jakarta op zoek naar sporen van het oude Batavia. Meer dan drie eeuwen lang woonden zijn voorouders in de stad, zo heeft hij ooit van zijn Indische grootvader gehoord. Wie waren ze? In wat voor stad leefden ze? Hoe is Aziatisch DNA in zijn genoom terechtgekomen? Aan de hand van zijn eigen familiegeschiedenis laat Dröge haarfijn zien hoe dit epicentrum van de kolonie functioneerde.