My book on the anti-war movement is still in print, The Vietnam War on Campus: Other Voices, More Distant Drums, (2000) as is The Vietnam War: Teaching Approaches and Resources (1991), but much more recently I wrote a chapter on the slow moral turn of the Hawaii delegation in Washington from Hawk to Dove, from 1964-1973: ‘”The View from the Hill: Hawaii’s Congressional Delegation and the Struggle for Peace in Vietnam and equity at Home, 1964-1975,” in Brian Cuddy and Fredrik Logevall, The Vietnam War and the Pacific World (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). I attach the latter in an easily printout format if you have time or desire to read it. . You will note that it features Spark Matsunaga, who is the true founder of the United States Institute for Peace, which is doing great work in Vietnam right now, linking US and Vietnamese youth in conversation.
One of my University’s satellite campus libraries shut down and gave away its books. I was able to acquire not only the books on the anti-war movement I had it purchase (all the fundamentals), but many others from the early sixties, which may come in handy if I turn that chapter into a book. It is a look from within the Hawaii sovereignty movement (on arrival SDS bowed to local peace leadership, a miracle of sorts), and thus might be filed as a research piece that can suggest to others a way to use local culture as a frame to teach peace. Hawaiians were unable to achieve “Peace with Aloha” in Vietnam, but they tried. My family has a close connection to Polynesia and to Hawaii which helped me see how successful such research can be. I use it even in the Historical Methods class where student complete a “site visit” reflective of Hawaiian values (including a copy of the “Hiroshima Bell”). I am very lucky that my retirement package included the ability to continue to teach a course or two a year and thus I have opportunities to still teach peace in the present situation.
Marc
Jason Gilbert,
Professor
of History and
NEH-Supported
Endowed Chair in World History
(2006-2019,
Emeritus, 2020)
Editor,
World History Connected (2008-)
66
Queen Street, Suite 2605
Honolulu,
Hawaii 96813
Phone:
808.638.2563
