Christian Appy

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Christian Appy is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Appy received his BA at Amherst College and his PhD at Harvard University (both in American Studies). He is best known for his books on the Vietnam War: a social history of American combat soldiers; a wide-ranging oral history from multiple perspectives (including accounts of Vietnamese and Americans combatants, policymakers, antiwar activists, journalists, etc.); and a history of the war’s impact on American national identity, culture, and foreign policy from the 1950s through the Obama administration.

Appy is currently working on a book about Daniel Ellsberg based largely on his papers, recently acquired by Special Collections & University Archives at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. The working title is “Ellsberg’s Mutiny: War and Resistance in the Age of Vietnam, The Pentagon Papers, and Nuclear Terror.”

Appy’s videos are used in the following Choices Program curriculum units:
The Vietnam War: Origins, History, and Legacies
The United States in Afghanistan
Freedom Now: The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi
Civics Lessons for Student Engagement
Imperial America: U.S. Global Expansion, 1890-1915
Lessons for Ethnic Studies
Competing Visions of Human Rights: Questions for U.S. Policy
A Global Controversy: The U.S. Invasion of Iraq
The Middle East: Questions for U.S. Policy
Responding to Terrorism: Challenges for Democracy
The U.S. Role in a Changing World