Activity 1 - Which events should we revise?

  1. ​Mind-Map - Create a concept-map using Padlet, Mindmup or any other similar mind-mapping tool (or create a sketchnote by hand!). In the middle write ‘The Vietnam War 1959-75’.
  2. Summarise - Now fill in your mind-map with key historical information and facts about the main events of the unit. Review your notes and summarise using the following headings and events:
    1. Causes - Failure of the Geneva Accords, Role of Ngo Dinh Diem, Repression and Authoritarianism, Failure of Land Reform and Domestic Policies, Failure to hold elections in 1956, Buddhist Crisis, Role of DRV, Vietcong Insurgency, Eisenhower Support, MAAG, Kennedy’s Flexible Response, Assassination of Diem, Gulf of Tonkin Incident/Resolution, Pleiku Incident, Operation Rolling Thunder.
    2. Course - Phase 1 (1960-63), Kennedy’s Flexible Response, Pacification, Strategic Hamlets, Green Berets, Battle of Ap Bac; Phase 2 (1964-69), Westmoreland’s War of Attrition, Search and Destroy, Strategic Bombing, Battle of La Drang Valley, Operation Rolling Thunder, Operation Attleboro, Battle of Khe Sahn, Tet Offensive, Battle of Hamburger Hill; Phase 3 (1968-72), Adam’s One War Strategy, Search and Hold, Return to Pacification, Nixon’s Mad Bomber Strategy, Vietnamisation, Peace with Honour, Operation Menu, Operation Lam Son 719, Operation Linebacker/II
    3. Resolution - Vietcong Strengths - Tactics, Ideology, Foreign Support; US Failures - Search and Destroy, Air power counterproductive, Failures of RVN and ARVN, US Public Opposition, Role of Media, Paris Peace Accords.
    4. Impact - Vietnam - Final Stages of War, Reunification; Laos - Civil War, Pathet Laos; Cambodia - Civil War, Khmer Rouge; USA - Protests, Watergate, War Powers Act, Detente, China Rapprochement
  3. Revise - Use your mind maps to help you revise the historical content for your upcoming assessment and final exams. Make sure you store a copy with your other revision materials.

Activity 2 - What was our inquiry?

  1. Recall -  Examine the statement of inquiry for this unit again and consider how it applies to what you’ve studied:
    1. Ideology and political perspectives can distort how states view threats to their security, increasing the chances for states to be drawn into conflicts
  2. Analyse - With a partner, discuss how this statement of inquiry could be applied to the Vietnam War. Consider the following questions:
    1. Connect - How is the statement of inquiry connected to what you have studied?
    2. Extend - Does the statement of inquiry extend your thinking about the Vietnam War in any way?
    3. Challenge - What is challenging or confusing about the statement of inquiry? 
  3. Discuss - Does the statement of inquiry apply to the Vietnam War? What else might it also apply to?
  4. Evaluate - The key concept for this unit was perspective. Consider the title of this unit - “Was the Vietnam War inevitable?”. Identify the different viewpoints that might be taken on this question, then consider who might hold this viewpoint, and whether these views have changed over time.

Activity 3 - How might we be assessed?

  1. Essay Plan - Try practicing for your end of unit review by essay planning. Use this essay mark-scheme to help:
    1. “Ideology was the most important cause of the Vietnam War (1956–1975).” Discuss - May 2019
    2. “The outcome of the Vietnam War had only negative economic and political effects on Vietnam.” Discuss - Nov 2018
    3. To what extent was the Vietnam War responsible for the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia? - Sp. Paper

Further Reading for Revision

OBLIGATORY READING
  1. Mamaux, A. (2015). The Cold War: Superpower Tensions and Rivalries, pp. 173-185
  2. Sanders, V. (2015). Access to History: The Cold War in Asia 1945-93, pp. 111-234
RECOMMENDED READING
SUPPLEMENTAL READING
  1. Weist, A. (2002). Osprey Essential Histories: The Vietnam War, 1956-1975, pp. 29-92
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