Today I’m responsible for what is normally the most difficult lecture in my Southeast Asian Politics class: Vietnam from the colonial era until reunification. There’s no better way to describe the issue than to reproduce two slides that I’ll be showing this afternoon.

How Many Vietnams? One? Two?

Especially challenging for a class at Cornell is the role of Cornell scholars in the anti-war movement. I’m not normally one for dealing with politically sensitive topics by “teaching the controversy” but in this case, that’s exactly what I’ll do.