Antiwar Transnationalism

Antiwar Transnationalism is an international history of the "People's Diplomats" who fanned out across the world to argue against the US war in Vietnam. Through transnational networks of sympathizers and the Vietnamese diaspora, they transcended Cold War boundaries, aroused opposition to the Vietnam War, isolated the US in the international arena, and altered US policy toward Vietnam.

Based on archival research and interviews in the US, Vietnam, and France, Nguyet T. M. Nguyen brings the agency of ordinary Vietnamese to the forefront of diplomacy, outlining how a handful of dedicated individuals effected change on a global scale. By internationalizing the antiwar movement, Nguyen underscores that the US antiwar movement did not operate in a vacuum but rather was only a piece of the larger story of the Vietnamese people and their global allies. Antiwar Transnationalism examines both the formal "People's Diplomacy" of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the unaffiliated antiwar activists, all of whom worked to deploy weapons of the weak—leveraging global public opinion—to overcome the world's greatest superpower.