The Politics of Vietnamese Craft: American Diplomacy and Domestication

Description

Jennifer Way's study The Politics of Vietnamese Craft uncovers a little-known chapter in the history of American cultural diplomacy, in which Vietnamese craft production was encouraged and shaped by the US State Department as an object for consumption by middle class America. Way explores how American business and commerce, department stores, the art world and national museums variously guided the marketing and meanings of Vietnamese craft in order to advance American diplomatic and domestic interests. Conversely, American uses of Vietnamese craft provide an example of how the United States aimed to absorb post-colonial South Vietnam into the 'Free World', in a Cold War context of American anxiety about communism spreading throughout Southeast Asia. Way focuses in particular on the part played by the renowned American designer Russel Wright, contracted by the US International Cooperation Administration's aid programs for South Vietnam to survey the craft industry in South Vietnam and manage its production, distribution and consumption abroad and at home. Way shows how Wright and his staff brought American ideas about Vietnamese history and culture to bear in managing the making of Vietnamese craft.

Jennifer Way is Professor of Art History at the University of North Texas, Dallas Forth Worth, USA.

Jennifer Way's The Politics of Vietnamese Craft is an exceptional book ... a necessary extension to studies of Cold War American cultural diplomacy and histories of design and craft ... It could be used as a basis to question the very foundations of the networks that define contemporary Southeast Asian art today. * Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia * Highly recommendable read to anyone interested in the centrality of Vietnamese craft ... Way inventively constructs a monograph that illuminates the political context of craft, art and design from layered perspectives and histories. * The Journal of Modern Craft * Sarah Way's book on the politics of Vietnamese craft makes a valuable and innovative contribution to the field of craft research, adding a new dimension to the study of the American Cold War through the examination of US craft trade in Southeast Asia ... This is an area of craft that is under-researched, and Way is laying the much-needed foundations upon which further research and discussion of this area may be based. * Craft Research * Jennifer Way's recent book on Vietnamese craft and American diplomacy offers a compelling new perspective on art and politics through Vietnamese "craft aid" in South Vietnam." * Journal of Vietnamese Studies * Craft is a remarkably sensitive index of culture and politics, and the best scholarship on the subject does full justice to its nuances. Jennifer Way's deeply researched examination of craft politics in Vietnam is just such a book. It is a remarkably timely publication, which considers craft in the context of refugee migration, and also looks at the impact of the tragic American intervention in the country. More than just a focused study of craft's uses and mis-uses in one place, Way's book is a model for modern craft studies worldwide. * Glenn Adamson, Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art, USA * An important and innovative volume that will have wide appeal to scholars of cultural diplomacy, visual culture, U.S. foreign relations, and American Studies. * Laura Belmonte, Professor of History and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech Institute and State University, USA * The American experience in Vietnam has inspired massive amounts of commentary and scholarship over half a century, yet The Politics of Vietnamese Craft contributes something remarkably fresh. Deftly combining the approaches of diplomatic and cultural history, Jennifer Way shows how the US government manipulated the production of Vietnamese handicrafts in the effort to build a robust and enduring South Vietnam in the years before the major escalation of fighting. This innovative and elegant study deserves the attention of readers interested not only in the history of the Vietnam War but also in U.S. efforts to shape politics and culture through the decolonizing world during the Cold War. * Mark Atwood Lawrence, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, USA *