Includes maps of: Indochina, 1954; Competing British Plans to Divide Indochina; French Plans for a Leopard Skin Partition.

Escalation and negotiation, March 1953-May 1954 -- "More important than Korea": background to negotiation -- Defeat in Vietnam? The Battle for Dien Bien Phu -- The Vietnamese confront the Cold War -- Before Geneva: the foundations of western disunity -- In search of a "lesser evil": partition as an idea -- United action averted -- The Geneva Conference on Indochina, May-July 1954 -- The Geneva Conference: the Bidault Phase -- Gouverner, c'est choisir -- The Geneva Conference: the Mend's-France Phase -- The global legacy, July 1954-July 1956 -- Making partition permanent -- Global implications -- Epilogue: "Our offspring."