Aid Under Fire

"A thought-provoking and cogently argued study of US nation-building programs in Vietnam. Elkind's ground-level analysis highlights the enormous, perhaps insurmountable, obstacles that hampered the American aid effort."—Philip E. Catton, author of Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam

"Aid Under Fire is an important book that expands our understanding of the US effort to 'modernize' South Vietnam by revealing the critical role played by aid workers on the ground."—Amanda Kay McVety, author of Enlightened Aid: U.S. Development as Foreign Policy in Ethiopia

"Elkind offers a fresh look at nation building in Vietnam, concluding that many aspects of US programs closely resembled imperial projects. This is an important study that is sure to impel us to think deeply about the wisdom and efficacy of nation building abroad."—Robert K. Brigham, author of The Wars for Vietnam: An International History

"Jessica Elkind's excellent study of US development aid to South Vietnam is a significant book that serious students of the Vietnam War and of nation-building strategies should read. It is a solid addition to the growing literature on America's ally in Vietnam and the realities of the Washington-Saigon connection. How US nation building morphed into American military intervention is a cautionary example for US policy makers today, and Elkind's superbly documented conclusions underscore the contribution that professional historical scholarship, if heeded, can make to the creation of sound foreign policy."—David L. Anderson, editor of The Columbia History of the Vietnam War

"Elkind's study fits nicely within a growing body of historical literature on the American experience in Vietnam."—American Historical Review

"Aid Under Fire by Jessica Elkind is a very useful and well-documented study on the use of aid by the United States as a weapon against the perceived threat of communism in Vietnam."—H-Diplo

"This highly readable work is accessible to both specialists and general readers and does much to explain the American failure to create a viable South Vietnamese state."—Journal of American History

"Through remarkable attention to detail in her chapters, [Elkind] offers an experientially driven portrait of the complex quotidian encounters between Vietnamese and Americans around developmentalism in a nation on the verge of civil war."—Diplomatic History

"A compact and accessible history of nation building in South Vietnam that teases out the complexities of the public/private partnerships at the root of America's support for the nascent state. In tight prose and with vivid examples, Elkind recounts a tragic history of mismanagement, flawed assumptions, and administrative backbiting."—Journal of Military History