Martin Shipway teaches in the Department of French, Birkbeck College, University of London.

"... this is an important book ... If I have gone on so long, it is out of enthusiasm for the story Shipway has to tell and the skillful way he tells it. This book is extremely well written, and I found reading it almost effortless ... I recommend this book to anyone interested in the origins of what may one day be considered the second thirty-years war of our 'short' century."  · H-Net Reviews"... an important contribution to understanding the tangled and tragic unfolding of the modern history of Indochina."  · Choice"... in this absorbing study, Martin Shipway examines one of France's most catastrophic colonial miscalculations."  · Modern and Contemporary France"... Well researched, clearly written and solidly argued, this study poses new questions, opens the possibility of larger comparisons ..."  · The Journal of Asian Studies

• AcknowledgementsNote on TextAbbreviationsMap of Indochina, 1945IntroductionPART I: THE EXTERNAL AND DOMESTIC PARAMETERS OF COLONIAL POLICY MAKINGChapter 1. The Brazzaville Conference and its Origins, 1940-1944: Policy Formulation and Myth Making on the CongoChapter 2. The Republic Strikes Back, 1944-1945: Brazzaville Policy and the Metropolitan CritiqueChapter 3. 'We are in the Midst of Colonial Crisis': The Response to International and Colonial ChangeChapter 4. The Domestic Parameters of Colonial Policy Making after the Liberation, 1944-1946PART II: POLICY MAKING IN INDOCHINA AND ITS BREAKDOWN, 1945-1947Chapter 5. Calculating the Stakes: Brazzaville Policy and the 'Return' to Indochina, December 1943-September 1945Chapter 6. The Primacy of Action: From the 'Return' to Saigon, October 1945, to the Signing of the Accords of 6 March 1946Chapter 7. Who Rules: Paris or Saigon? The Dalat Conference and the Cochinchina Policy, March-June 1946Chapter 8. 'A Round of the Battle we are Fighting': The Fontainebleau Conference, June-Septe,ber 1946Chapter 9. The Narrowing of French Policy Options, Autumn 1946: The Accords Policy Abandoned?Chapter 10. 'The Tonkin Vespers', December 1946: Burying the Accords PolicyConclusionAppendix I: The Administrative Structure of the French Empire, 1945Appendix II: Chronology of Events in France and Indochina, 1944-1947BibliographyIndex