Village Violence and Village Pacification in Vietnam

On the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ithiel De Sola Pool, head of the political science department at MIT, talks about the history of widespread violence in village societies. He points to land disputes, political divisions and differences in the caste system as a few of the reasons for major conflicts. Even though guerilla movements can unite peasants, Pool questions their appeal since it is the peasants who usually lose their lives.