Whilst it is probably invidious to pick out only five contemporary historians on the First Indochina War and Điện Biên Phủ I select the following because:

• They are all leaders in the field. So, it is always worthwhile to keep up with their latest scholarship.

• They were all courteous and helpful to me as I fumbled through my PhD.

• They are the sort of chaps that you can enjoy having a drink with.

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1. Christopher Goscha

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Any new student of the First Indochina War can do little wrong if they start with the works of Professor Christopher Goscha of l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM).

His personal page is here: https://cgoscha.uqam.ca/

UQAM’s resource page is here: https://indochine.uqam.ca/en.html

Of particular use are the numerous bibliographies, and the DRV Cadre interviews which provide an interesting opposite “bookend” to my work on the war, covering events in 1945-6 instead of 1953-54.

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2. Ivan Cadeau

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Chief of the Office of Doctrine, Operations and Intelligence at the Service Historique de la Défense - Château de Vincennes. He has published widely on military subjects, especially the First Indochina War as can be seen here: https://fr.linkedin.com/in/ivan-cadeau-59360236

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3. Pierre Journoud

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Professor of contemporary history at l ’Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier (UPVM).

He has published extensively on Indochina, https://crises.www.univ-montp3.fr/fr/annuaire_recherche/pierre-journoud

and is one of the few Western authors to have his work on Dien Bien Phu published in Vietnam: https://vovworld.vn/en-US/spotlight/book-memories-of-dien-bien-phu-witnesses-speak-out-released-1291898.vov

 

4. Pierre Asselin

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The Dwight E. Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations in the Department of History at San Diego State University. Although his work on Vietnam tends to focus on events after 1954, his articles on the end of the First Indochina war influenced my own thinking: https://history.sdsu.edu/people/asselin

 

5. Kevin Boylan

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Historian, U.S. Army Center of Military History, and the author, with Luc Olivier, of, in my opinion, the best account of Dien Bien Phu from both sides: “Valley of the Shadow: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu.” Although we have never met in person, we corresponded on several aspects of the battle and his helpful insights and analysis benefitted my work greatly. Having consummately dealt with the end of the First Indochina War, Dr Boylan is now employed by the US Army Center of Military History to write an official history of Combat Operations in the final years of the “American War” 1970-1973: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-boylan-538835128