Examines the role of history in the modern nation state; demonstrates the wide variety of historical sources which are available to the historian and which offer us alternative means of viewing the past. After examining the place of history in Vietnamese and American national life and the place of the Second Indochinese War within this context, the course examines the different means by which the past can be conveyed and demonstrates how such forms as literature, memory and film can help construct historical narratives. Topics will include Vietnamese and American voices, women, masculinity, race, genocide and Cambodia.