The First Vietnam War, better known to many as the First Indochina War (1945–1954), has always taken a back seat to other conflicts. When it comes to France’s wars of decolonization, French scholarship on the Algerian War (1954–1962) is far ahead. There are many reasons explaining this asymmetry, but the work of a new generation of French scholars since the early 2000s is one important factor. Historians like Emmanuel Blanchard, Raphaëlle Branche, and Sylvie Thénault, to name but three, have expanded our understanding of the Algerian conflict with theoretically sophisticated and carefully researched studies of violence, state, society, law, and memory making on both sides of the Mediterranean. Backing them up in English has been an equally impressive phalanx of cutting-edge scholarship, led by the likes of Todd Shephard, James House, and Neil MacMaster. Strangely, the French study of the Indochinese War has experienced no such revival. Long-departed specialists, like...