9: FRENCH INDOCHINA, POSTWAR AMERICAN INTERNATIONALISM, GRAHAM GREENE AND “THE QUIET AMERICAN” Summary and Questions for Viewing “The Quiet American” Graham Greene wrote “The Quiet American” in 1955, drawing upon his experiences from 1951 to 1954 in Saigon reporting on the French colonial war for The Sunday Times. This novel is a work of fiction written by a British author who is very critical of the growing American power in the post-WWII period. GGreene was a prolific author and persistent critic of American foreign policy. He was a complicated man, a member of the British upper-middle class who suffered from bipolar disorder. His writing is sensitive to the erosion of British power in the new “American Century”—the title that William T. Stead and others had given to the twentieth century. The American presence in world affairs seems to have taken Greene and many of his European contemporaries by surprise. While continuing to try conducting business as usual, they found themselves in a new world, one that they did not fully understand. One in which the old rules seemed to no longer apply. It is a world that now seems to be swarming with Americans.
