series looking back 50 years. the vietnam war, race relations, women's rights, a presidential election. sundays. we will take your calls on c-span's washington journal and here on american history tv on c-span3. >> american history tv, the story mark philip bradley of the university of chicago discusses the vietnam war. he explains why teaching the vietnam war has changed and reflects on u.s. vietnam relations today. we interviewed him at the american historical association's annual meeting and washington, d.c. this is about 15 minutes. mark bradley teaches history at the university of chicago and is ace -- as a specialty studies the history of vietnam and human rights. i would like to talk to you with the it -- about vietnam.

it's a good year to be a vietnam historian. lots going on. how has america's understanding of the war changed over 50 years? the crucial i think shift has been more recent and certain kinds of ways. during the war itself, the way academic historians wrote about the war was in christ -- was in quite a critical mode. it was a mistake. the reagan era brought a different way of thinking about the war. that was a kind of revisionist notion that maybe in fact it was a necessary war. it really was some kind of strategic point in being in vietnam. that set of a relatively contentious set of debate between historians who want to recover something out of vietnam that is perhaps more positive and what has continued to be a mainstream historical perspective that in many ways the war was fundamentally wrong

and ineffective. what you see now is a younger generation coming in all of this. there are debates in some ways about our generation or a generation behind us. the younger people come into it from a very different perspective. time, the first set of kids i was teaching, their parents might have served in the war or they were antiwar activist and had some direct connection to the war. now it is the peloponnesian war as far as they are concerned. it was a long time ago. that helps in teaching in some ways. the blank slate creates challenges. but they are able to think about it in terms i think are less politicized and less charged than in the past. susan: it is not emotional for them. mr. bradley: it is not. it is also not america's longest war. the war in afghanistan has that moniker on it.

that was a way the war had been exceptional lysed. a war had never been that long. americans win wars. now we have a generation that people who gone through iraq and afghanistan and the perpetual war on terror. it starts to seem normal rather than an aberration. that also influences the way a younger generation sees it. susan: and here comes the emotional part of it. all the wars they have experienced it and fought by people they don't know so well. with vietnam, with a much more personal thing. when we talk to interns at the company we try to convey how much the draft impacted everybody's life at that time. what do your students understand the importance of the draft on the public perception of the war? mr. bradley: that's a very hard thing to cover with students in a certain way. ken burns to this 18 hours series on vietnam that has been controversial in its own right.

one of the things the series did exceptionally well, and i'm hoping to use those in working with students, is he is good on stories. he has long narratives around people who either signed up or were drafted. we see them move through time. some of whom died and we see their families. we see their mothers and brothers and sisters. that kind of thing is something that can help students begin to me,rstand if it had been this is how it might have gone. it was very -- the wars are essentially fought by almost a separate class of people in the united states at this point. susan: one of the big arguments for the war was the domino theory. than southeast, asia, etc. and the great influence of china and russia. of history in our

understanding of those powers, has that theory been tested and proven it really wasn't a bigger threat as policymakers understood it to be at the time? mr. bradley: if you interviewed different people they would answer in different ways. i would say the domino theory was about the war was an extension of the cold war and we were fighting a front of the cold war in a hot way in vietnam. the difference of fighting the war for independence, colonists fighting, deletes of the cold war because the vietnamese economists had intentions. was aboutental war independence. the domino theory in that way doesn't necessarily signify the waited for mcnamara or johnson or neck's and. e other thing -- and

nixon. won. the north had today in vietnam we have a market economy that looks much like it was in their wildest dreams, the americans hoped would become in vietnam and never did. that's the reality of vietnamese society today. history has an odd way of moving in directions that people don't necessarily anticipate as time goes by. susan: how important was normalization with relations with the united states? mr. bradley: he was important but we sometimes overestimate the impact of the united states on small states like vietnam and other places. -- we had a trade embargo against vietnam during the war which we did not lift until the 1990's. once we did, they moved towards normalization of diplomatic relations. in the meantime everybody but us was training with vietnam. the australians had a huge presence, the french had a huge

presence there, and south korea had a huge presence. they are the largest single foreign investor in vietnam today. talking about what it is economy is so successful, one has to look in parts of europe but in fact more to developments in asia than the united states. our recognition accelerated a set of patterns are already going on. i think that is the more helpful way of seeing and suggesting our recognition set things in motion. susan: if modern vietnam has a market economy, how much freedom to individuals have? mr. bradley: it is like china. there is a one party state that governs vietnam and running a market economy at the same time. the constraints on freedom of expression are there in the same way they are in china. the state is not particularly keen on people who don't play by those rules. human rights activists, people

speaking out against problems in society. they have been celebrated trials in the last couple of years where people are locked up for 10 or 15 years. that said, there is a way in in howociety is engaged policies work. there have been peasant uprisings in places in rural areas where the government was essentially trying to take land away. the government had to back off. these are not public. often not what the press is covering. there are sort of press blackout because the regime is interested in there being a lot of -- not being a lot of attention on it. it is making an impact on how government works. a lot of nationalism comes back against the government. people protesting the government was too close to china around a set of issues. the government had to push back in some ways there. for openl the room

conversation about politics is not wide, but there are spaces. the same is true for china as well. susan: there are large the emmys population centers in the united states. how has our country changed as a result of this immigration? mr. bradley: it is interesting where they are now in the united states given it was only in 1975 and later the people were coming over. you have people in government. you have people in the military. the first american ship that came back to vietnam to do some joint naval exercises two or three years ago was cap did buy a vietnamese american. you have that sort of moment of this american coming back and working with the military in vietnam, which was quite an extraordinary moment. impact of vietnamese americans in a whole variety of fields has been really large.

it has been different for other refugee communities coming from cambodia and laos. it was not just vietnam. it was happening in all three places. for the cambodian american community it has been a much more mixed situation and how people about economically, socially since the end of the war. aertainly with the lo community any mung community. didn: you are here participate in a panel on the ken burns series. you referenced that earlier. i'm sure many people watching us saw that as well. one of the things i read, and you referenced this, the oral histories and not involving academic historians. what are the pluses and minuses of that in your estimation and telling the vietnam story? mr. bradley: i think as much as we would like to think we can have that credit introspective

on the general public -- influence on the general public, i'm not sure we do. compelling ofore a way to tell up and we could do. they are just absolutely brilliant interview second on. the people we follow across time and space, you get the sense of knowing the people. not just another quick interview. they are really deep. one of the things with historians is the rebalance in a -- you can say this, you can say that. i think you get a sense it was particularly balanced in the end. it really did represent a very strong critique of american involvement in vietnam during that period of time. one way burns does it is using the presidential tapes. he doesn't of kennedy and nio -- he does it for kennedy and nixon

and johnson. the american state eventually hangs itself. there are the no decent interval nixon says. ofsort of takes us out having to make that argument in one form or another where the contention always comes. what you do when you have that? that's exactly what are here in as if you were watching it. it's interesting to have the tapes together that do it in a compelling way. 1979.: we had generation of journalists and numbers of congress, historians who are part of the experience and served and are now aging out. we always used to hear about the country absorbing the lessons of vietnam towards foreign policy. as you watch more contemporary america, have lessons been

successfully absorbed into our policy decisions? mr. bradley: i would say no. the afghan war in the war in iraw does not -- iraq does not show the lessons of vietnam have been learned. the notion we can intervene in a particular place and engineer a transformation place after place after place it doesn't work. all you have to do is look backward in time. the french believed they could do that as an imperial power. it did not work in the end for them as well. the whole notion that these kinds of interventions can achieve the policy goals that are imagined as possible, but that is fundamentally flawed. yet we seem to do it over and over again. when i first started teaching i did believe this could never happen again.

people have seen this and learned a set of lessons. the last 10-15 years would suggest almost the complete other way around. susan: history gives us the opportunity to revisit these questions. what are some of the significant ways your observing the next couple of years and anniversaries are being observed and discussed? mr. bradley: anniversaries are good in putting people's attention and focus back on vietnam. become morehave compelling in front and center for people. it's an opportunity to go back and perhaps rethink some of these issues. this year it is the tet anniversary. tet is almost the perfect event to think and kaleidoscopic ways about the war. looks like a, tet major defeat for the united states.

people were seeing pictures of the viet cong and the american embassy, etc. it turned out in fact within two weeks the americans and south vietnamese had beat back the north vietnamese. it appeared as if it really wasn't that if he did was. but then it turned out the north had a kind of bloody interparty battle about whether to do tet or not. that puts aside more moderate actors in vietnam, more hardline group of actors involved in the war. the war transformed into a much more conventional war after 19 the eight. -- 1968. so many things happened as a result of it. it's a good way for people to understand the levels of complexity involved in thinking about what it was to be in vietnam. susan: it is a complex history and we had a brief time to thank you for talking about vietnam then and now. appreciate your time. easterny at 6:00 p.m.

on american history tv's american artifacts, political cartoonist herbert block. his career spanned 72 years, covering president herbert hoover to george w. bush. see the largest collection of his work house at the library of congress. >> one of the missions of the library of congress is to document the creativity and intelligence of the american people and preserve it for future generations. i think it's a mark of a free society that we can gather opinions with which we do not agree and collect them and preserve them for future generations. there are a lot of countries in the world where nobody would dare do that. here we are just caps on u.s. capitol and we have a variety of opinions and a variety of cartoonists. example ofs a great

one of the artists we have collected. >> watch american artifacts, sunday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. >> tonight on american history ceremony to commemorate african-american abolitionist frederick douglass' 200th birthday. held in the u.s. capitol visitor center emancipation hall. here is a preview. >> around the age of seven or eight years old he had something he called divine providence. he was chosen from among all the slave children on the plantation to go to baltimore to be the house servant for his master's brother-in-law. when he got there is late mistress had never had a sleep before. she did not know it was illegal to teach young frederick had a read and write so she began to teach in the abcs.

when his master found out about it, he got angry. he forbade the teaching. he looked at frederick and he looked at his wife sophia and he said, you cannot teach a slave had a read and write because if you do it will unfit him to be a slave. frederick look at his master and he heard that mr. hani's -- and he said if you don't me to have this, i will do everything in my power to gain it. he understood knowledge is power and education would be his pathway to freedom. in honor of frederick douglass' bicentennial, family initiatives has published a special bicentennial edition of his narrative. his first autobiography which was first published in 1845 that the library of congress named one of the 88 books that shaped america. in the same way when frederick douglass started to teach himself to read and write, he started to break free from mental bondage. he became unfit to be enslaved.

he started to ask critical questions about his oppression and enslavement. he would ask, god, do you mean for me to be a slave for life? my master puts on a suit every sunday and goes to church. fore is word in the bible justification to exploit, pillage and plunder his property. mind't wrap my around the christianity of christ. he would ask questions like, why am i a slave? why you own me? he is so putting the words of frederick douglass in his classic autobiography, "life of frederick douglass," into the hands of one million students, which is our planet's bicentennial year, we want to inspire and empower the next generation of leaders with the words of frederick douglass.

>> you can watch the entire program tonight at seven: 05 eastern. american history tv, only on c-span3. next on history bookshelf, john berry talks about his book, "the great influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history." influenzas the 1918 epidemic that killed millions around the world. he also discusses the critical role doctors played and how governments poorly handled health concerns, such as the 2003 sars outbreak. this was recorded at the 2004 louisiana book festival in baton rouge, louisiana. it is about 50 minutes. m ary is the distinguished author of "the am ng tide -- john