Contesting Indochina : French Remembrance between Decolonization and Cold War

How does a nation come to terms with losing a war-especially an overseas war whose purpose is fervently contested?

In the years after the war, how does such a nation construct and reconstruct its identity and values?

For the French in Indochina, the stunning defeat at Dien Bien Phu ushered in the violent process of decolonization and a fraught reckoning with a colonial past.

Contesting Indochina is the first in-depth study of the competing and intertwined narratives of the Indochina War.

It analyzes the layers of French remembrance, focusing on state-sponsored commemoration, veterans' associations, special-interest groups, intellectuals, films, and heated public disputes.

These narratives constitute the ideological battleground for contesting the legacies of colonialism, decolonization, the Cold War, and France's changing global status.