ABSTRACT
Vietnamese history is characterized by two major themes. The first is the effort to preseve the national identity against foreigners. This meant a thousand-year-long struggle against Chinese control (111BCC-AAD938), followed by a long effort to preserve that independence and territorial unity against the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and then the Americans. The second theme is territorial expansionism, most notably the march to the south as far as the Cà Mau Peninsula. Wars, both international and civil, have long been a part of a tumultuous Vietnamese history. The scholar Pham Quynh noted the repeated divisions that wars have caused his country: “We Vietnamese are a people in search of a country and we do not find it.”1
