America’s lengthy war in Vietnam was‐‐by most accounts‐‐it’s most divisive. As U.S. troop levels swelled to more than a half million by 1968, American society split sharply over the legitimacy and efficacy of the war effort. The war’s inconclusiveness and unpopularity spawned not only a broad‐based antiwar movement, but also a reexamination of America’s purpose as wrenching as any other since before or after the grueling Civil War. Neither Richard Nixon’s 1969 decision to ultimately eliminate U.S. ground forces, nor the 1975 fall of Saigon did much to resolve the debate or to ease the traumas that it unleashed. Our class explores the larger boundaries of that debate by focusing on questions such as: Why did America intervene in Vietnam; what did America seek to accomplish there? Were these goals attainable? What domestic events played out; often resulting in lasting and compelling change? Who were America’s enemies? Allies? Can U.S. actions there be characterized as moral—or immoral? How did an unindustrialized, rural region ultimately dominate the world’s leading authority? Much reading and even more discussion will allow us to travel back and re‐live this conflict and its ascendant chaos, perhaps with new‐found appreciation for Vietnam’s American legacy