Website Spotlight: Vietnam Online

Website URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/index.html

Introductory Note:

Welcome to one in a series of posts which spotlight quality websites that I use with my U.S. History survey course students at Azusa Pacific University to enrich the regular material in our learning modules.

In this post, I limit myself to those specific aspects of the website which I find fit particularly well within our face-to-face class sessions (each student is required to bring a laptop to class) or as the basis for the students' regularly-assigned written reactions.

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The parts of this website which I find particularly useful are the following:

I. About the TV Series

This website is the internet companion to Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History.

For a course I teach on Vietnam, I provide my students a reading guide for that book--which can be accessed at this URL: http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/Karnow

The videos (titles below) in the TV series are among the best available on Vietnam:

Roots of War
America's Mandarin
LBJ Goes to War
America Takes Charge
America's Enemy
Tet 1968
Vietnamizing the War
Cambodia and Laos
Peace is at Hand
Homefront USA
The End of the Tunnel

II. Timeline
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/

This is really terrific.

III. Who's Who
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/whos/index.html

This section provides brief sketches of key figures of the war.

IV. In The Trenches

Work through these two sections:

Weapons of War (Note: there are two parts: US and enemy)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/weapons.html

Language of War
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/language.html

V. Primary Sources

State Department White Paper on Vietnam
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/psources/ps_north.html

VI. Maps
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/maps/index.html

An incredible series of interactive maps. Not to miss.

VII. Reflections on a War: Personal Essays
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/reflect/index.html

Read especially the following:

Vietnam: Few Heaven-Born Captains (David Hackworth)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/reflect/hackworth.html

An Amerasian Childhood in Da Nang
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/reflect/langworthy.html

The Vietnam War and Vietnam
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/reflect/chung.html

Why I Went to War (A Female Red Cross Worker)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/reflect/farish.html

The Volunteer
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/reflect/ehrhart.html

VIII. Teacher's Guide
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/tguide/index.html

Make your choice from several wonderful suggestions.

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Concluding Note:

I hope you will use this blog post in conjunction with both the modules on my Learning Professor wiki and the numerous other posts in my Website Spotlight series.

1. The website spotlighted in this post fits within the following U.S. History survey course module on the wiki:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/Vietnam

2. The other blog posts in my Website Spotlight series--chronologically displayed by U.S. History survey course module-- can be found on this wiki page:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/WEBSITE+SPOTLIGHT