"Follow acclaimed history professor and American foreign policy expert Robert K. Brigham, Ph.D., on a trek across the globe to explore the dramatic events that shaped America and the world.
The great American experiment is one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. How did America transform from a scrappy collection of British colonies into a global superpower?
Through vivid accounts and insightful analysis, Prof. Brigham shows you that America’s ascent into world leadership was neither preordained nor accidental. Rather, from its very beginnings, American foreign policy has been central to the country’s national identity. While the Founding Fathers used foreign relations to secure the young republic’s political experiment, subsequent leaders have consistently wielded American power to ensure the country’s prosperity and security.
As Prof. Brigham ably demonstrates in 24 riveting lectures, America’s role on the world stage has rarely been uncomplicated. Americans have always debated their place in foreign affairs—their wars, their commitments, their interests—and challenged others’ perception of the nation’s power. In fact, few issues have divided policy makers and the American public more than US foreign policy.
This course is part of the Learn25 collection."
"A gripping and authoritative 24-lecture history course on the Vietnam War from the award-winning professor who cowrote Argument without End with Robert McNamara.
Using newly available archival and source material from the United States and Vietnam, Vassar College professor Robert K. Brigham helps you grapple with the legacy of the Vietnam War today.
Based on more than 100 trips to Vietnam and extensive interviews with key players from all sides, Prof. Brigham weaves vivid biographical sketches and rich anecdotes into recorded history. His masterful storytelling will help you look behind common assumptions about the conflict.
Not since the Civil War had the American national consciousness been as strained as it was by the conflict in Southeast Asia. Indeed, the controversies that the Vietnam War spurred on the home front are more familiar to many Americans than the policies and motives that guided the conflict. Vietnam: The Definitive History of the War fills that gap. The provocative questions Prof. Brigham raises will help you reexamine the war from today’s vantage.
Throughout, Prof. Brigham sheds light on the United States and its place in the world today. Under his expert guidance, you will gain fresh understanding of this momentous chapter in American history.
This course is part of the Learn25 collection."
"Henry Kissinger's role in the Vietnam War prolonged the American tragedy and doomed the government of South Vietnam
The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 after eight years of fighting, bloodshed, and loss. Yet the terms of the truce that ended the war were effectively identical to what had been offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America and Vietnam thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and they were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.
Using newly available archival material from the Nixon Presidential Library, Kissinger's personal papers, and material from the archives in Vietnam, Robert K. Brigham punctures the myth of Kissinger as an infallible mastermind. Instead, he constructs a portrait of a rash, opportunistic, and suggestible politician. It was personal political rivalries, the domestic political climate, and strategic confusion that drove Kissinger's actions. There was no great master plan or Bismarckian theory that supported how the US continued the war or conducted peace negotiations. Its length was doubled for nothing but the ego and poor judgment of a single figure.
This distant tragedy, perpetuated by Kissinger's actions, forever changed both countries. Now, perhaps for the first time, we can see the full scale of that tragedy and the machinations that fed it."
