Professor of History at WMU to Present on Agent Orange and the Legacies of the Vietnam War

WASHINGTON, PA (April 7, 2022) – Washington & Jefferson College will host Dr. Edwin Martini, professor of history at Western Michigan University, for a free public lecture at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 11, in Dieter-Porter 100. Martini will give a presentation on “Agent Orange and the Legacies of the Vietnam War.”

This lecture, part of the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment grant, will track the environmental war in Vietnam from its inception to the present, considering how U.S. policymakers thought about the use of herbicides during the U.S. war in Vietnam, how military authorities carried out the chemical war, and how the use of chemical defoliants has continuing impacts in the U.S. and in Vietnam.

His lecture is sponsored by the W&J History, International Studies, and Environmental Studies Departments, along with the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment Program, which aims to support integrated, innovative projects and programs that promote Asian studies within the context of environmental studies.

Ed Martini is Professor of History at Western Michigan University, where he currently serves as Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning and Dean of Merze Tate College. He is the author and editor of several books, including Invisible Enemies: The American War on Vietnam, 1975-2000 (2007), Agent Orange: History, Science, and the Politics of Uncertainty (2012), and At War: The Military and American Culture in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (2018, with David Kieran). Martini is currently working on a global history of napalm and serves as co-editor of the University of Massachusetts Press book series, “Culture and Politics in the Cold War and Beyond.

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