Embers of War: the fall of an empire and the making of America's Vietnam by
A history of the four decades leading up to the Vietnam War offers insights into how the U.S. became involved, identifying commonalities between the campaigns of French and American forces while discussing relevant political factors.
Enduring Vietnam by
The Vietnam War is largely recalled as a mistake, either in the decision to engage there or in the nature of the engagement. Or both. Veterans of the war remain largely anonymous figures, accomplices in the mistake. Critically recounting the steps that led to the war, this book does not excuse the mistakes, but it brings those who served out of the shadows. Enduring Vietnam recounts the experiences of the young Americans who fought in Vietnam and of families who grieved those who did not return. By 1969 nearly half of the junior enlisted men who died in Vietnam were draftees. And their median age was 21--among the non-draftees it was only 20. The book describes the "baby boomers" growing up in the 1950s, why they went into the military, what they thought of the war, and what it was like to serve in "Nam." And to come home. With a rich narrative of the Battle for "Hamburger Hill," and through substantial interviews with those who served, the book depicts the cruelty of this war, and its quiet acts of courage. James Wright's Enduring Vietnam provides an important dimension to the profile of an American generation--and a rich account of an American War.
A Grand Delusion by
A Grand Delusion is the first comprehensive single-volume American political history of the Vietnam War. Spanning the years 1945 to 1975, it is the definitive story of the well-meaning but often misguided American political leaders whose unquestioning adherence to Cold War dogma led the nation into its tragic misadventure in Vietnam. At the center of this narrative are seven such men-Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, J. William Fulbright, Mike Mansfield, and George McGovern. During their careers, each occupied center-stage in the nation's debate over Vietnam policy.Mann focuses in particular on the role played by leading members of Congress, including senators' Mansfield and Kennedy's shaping of American policy toward Vietnam in the 1950s; Congress's acquiescence in the 1950s to the Eisenhower administration's support of the American-backed Diem government; and the blank check that Congress gave to Lyndon Johnson with the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution.Mann considers as well the evolution of opposition to the war, including pivotal hearings conducted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1966 to 1968; the small band of war opponents led by senators Fulbright, McGovern, and Wayne Morse; Mansfield's quiet-but-persistent lobbying campaign to dissuade his friend Lyndon Johnson from escalating the war in 1965; the bitter political feud that erupted between Fulbright and Johnson-erstwhile friends-over the war; McGovern and Hatfield's determined effort to force Richard Nixon to withdraw American forces from Vietnam; and Congress's assertion of its Constitutional role in war making in the early 1970s, culminating in the passage of the War Powers resolution in 1973.In addition to being a piercing analysis of the political currents that resulted in and eventually ended the war, A Grand Delusion is an epic tragedy filled with fascinating characters and a keen reflection on the antagonisms and beliefs that divided the nation during those tumultuous years.
Hue 1968 by
In mid-1967, the North Vietnam leadership had started planning an offensive intended to win the war in a single stroke. Part military action and part popular uprising, the effort included attacks across South Vietnam, but the most dramatic and successful would be the capture of Huế, the country's intellectual and cultural capital. At 2:30 a.m. on January 31, the first day of the Lunar New Year (called Tet), ten thousand National Liberation Front troops descended from hidden camps and -- led by locals like eighteen-year-old village girl and Viet Cong member Che Thi Mung -- surged across the city of 140,000. By morning, all of Huế was in Front hands save for two small military outposts. The American commanders in country and politicians in Washington refused to believe the size and scope of the Front's presence. Captain Chuck Meadows was ordered to lead his 160-marine Golf Company in the first attempt to reenter Huế later that day. Facing thousands of entrenched enemy troops, he reported: "We are outgunned and outmanned." After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city, block by block and building by building, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. With unprecedented access to war archives in the United States and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple points of view. Played out over twenty-four days of terrible fighting and ultimately costing more than ten thousand combatant and civilian lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate over the war was never again about winning, only about how to leave.
In Retrospect: the tragedy and lessons of Vietnam by
Breaking 27 years of silence, former defense secretary McNamara seeks "to put Vietnam in context" and counter "the cynicism and even contempt with which so many people view our political institutions and leaders." The two administrations McNamara served made their "terribly wrong" decisions, he argues, because of "an error not of values and intentions but of judgment and capabilities." Though one brief chapter sketches McNamara's life before 1961, In Retrospect is more than memoir: Annapolis history professor VanDeMark--author of Into the Quagmire (1990)--supplied thorough research files, including newly declassified documents, and reviewed McNamara's drafts for historical accuracy. McNamara maintains that U.S. Vietnam policy rested on contradictory premises: a "domino" theory that, in retrospect, overstated the threat to U.S. security and world peace if Ho Chi Minh's forces won; and recognition that if the South Vietnamese were not committed to defending themselves, no other nation could do it. McNamara assumes responsibility for failing to address that contradiction and other unexamined assumptions and undebated disagreements that plagued decision making in these years. He identifies "eleven major causes for our disaster in Vietnam" and six points when the U.S. could legitimately have withdrawn. Certainly not the last word on this still-controversial subject but an essential acquisition for most libraries. --Mary Carroll
Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: local, national, and transnational perspectives by
Making sense of the wars for Vietnam has had a long history. The question "why Vietnam?" dominated American and Vietnamese political life for much of the length of the Vietnam wars and has continued to be asked in the three decades since they ended. The essays in this inaugural volume of theNational History Center's book series "Reinterpreting History" examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that mark the contested terrain of Vietnam war scholarship. They range top-down reconsiderations of critical decision-making moments in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon to microhistories ofthe war that explore its meanings from the bottom up. Some draw on recently available Vietnamese-language archival materials. Others mine new primary sources in the United States or France, Great Britain, the former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe. Collectively, these essays map theinterpretive histories of the Vietnam wars: past, present, and future. They also raise questions about larger meanings and the ongoing relevance of the wars for Vietnam in American, Vietnamese, and international histories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the memory of war by
All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War-a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations. From a kaleidoscope of cultural forms-novels, memoirs, cemeteries, monuments, films, photography, museum exhibits, video games, souvenirs, and more- Nothing Ever Dies brings a comprehensive vision of the war into sharp focus. At stake are ethical questions about how the war should be remembered by participants that include not only Americans and Vietnamese but also Laotians, Cambodians, South Koreans, and Southeast Asian Americans. Too often, memorials valorize the experience of one's own people above all else, honoring their sacrifices while demonizing the "enemy"-or, most often, ignoring combatants and civilians on the other side altogether. Visiting sites across the United States, Southeast Asia, and Korea, Viet Thanh Nguyen provides penetrating interpretations of the way memories of the war help to enable future wars or struggle to prevent them. Drawing from this war, Nguyen offers a lesson for all wars by calling on us to recognize not only our shared humanity but our ever-present inhumanity. This is the only path to reconciliation with our foes, and with ourselves. Without reconciliation, war's truth will be impossible to remember, and war's trauma impossible to forget.
Odysseus in America: combat trauma and the trials of homecoming by
Introduction -- Odysseus among the rich civilians -- Pirate raid: staying in combat mode -- Lotus land: the flight from pain -- Cyclops: the flight from boredom -- Odysseus gets a leg up-- and falls on his face: the workplace -- A peaceful harbor: no safe place -- Witches, goddesses, queens, wives-- dangerous women -- Among the dead: memory and guilt -- What was the sirens' song?: truth as deadly addiction -- Scylla and Charybdis: dangers up, down, and sideways -- The sun god's beef: the blame game -- Above the whirlpool -- Calypso: Odysseus the sexaholic -- Odysseus at home -- Introduction -- From the clinic to the wall -- Lew Puller ain't on the wall -- Introduction -- Preventing psychological and moral injury in military service -- Odysseus as a military leader -- Conclusion -- Appendix I: a pocket guide to Homer's Odyssey -- Appendix II: information resources for Vietnam veterans and their families -- Appendix III: some proposals.
Abstract: The author draws parallels between the Odyssey and the experiences of Vietnam veterans after returning to the United States.
Reporting Vietnam by 
Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: the Vietnam War revisited by
From its beginnings in the Colonial War with France in the 1940s and 50s, through to the final evacuation of Saigon in 1975 and beyond, each chapter of Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land- The Vietnam War Revisited focuses on a different aspect of the Vietnam War. Officers from both the NVA and ARVN take a first-hand look at the strategy and tactics of both sides and give critical assessments of where the war went wrong; Le Ly Hayslip provides a harrowing account of life for the typical South Vietnamese civilian caught up in the war. Acclaimed historians and journalists, such as Bernard Edelman and Arnold Isaacs, take a critical look at the many aspects of the war from the river war and the air war through to the strategy and doctrine used by the US forces.
The Story of Viet Nam: from prehistory to the present by
"The primary theme of this work is the enduring spirit of the Vietnamese. The author's focus is on the Vietnamese people and their social, political, economic, and religious structures. More than any other Southeast Asian country, Vietnam experienced multiple intrusive and lengthy periods of colonial rule by foreign powers; yet, Vietnam should be understood and defined by its indigenous social patterns. So, while the book clearly delineates the influences of France, Japan, and the United States on Vietnamese society, these foreign influences remain the "thin, flaking glaze" over what is an indomitable spirit of the Vietnamese indigenous culture. The mid 1970s end of the Vietnam War was in many ways a beginning for a unified Vietnam. Failed policies during the last quarter of the twentieth century trapped Vietnam in a cycle of poverty and foreign wars. Its economic emergence at the start of the twenty-first century is just one more testimony to the resilience of the Vietnamese"--
A Time for Peace: the legacy of the Vietnam War by 
Vietnam by 
Vietnam by
"Vietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido--where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out--together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh's warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people. Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it overwhelmingly as one for the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners' victory in privation and oppression. Here we are given testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bar girls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas. No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences in the fashion that Hastings's readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle, and presents many lessons for the twenty-first century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. In Vietnam, Hastings marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record."
Vietnam: a view from the front lines by
"Based on the rich collection housed at the National Archives, the Center of Military History, and at the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech, [this work] allows the reader a grunt's-eye view of the conflict."--Front jacket flap.
Voices from the Vietnam War by
The Vietnam War's influence on politics, foreign policy, and subsequent military campaigns is the center of much debate and analysis. But the impact on veterans across the globe, as well as the war's effects on individual lives and communities, is a largely neglected issue. As a consequence of cultural and legal barriers, the oral histories of the Vietnam War currently available in English are predictably one-sided, providing limited insight into the inner workings of the Communist nations that participated in the war. Furthermore, many of these accounts focus on combat experiences rather than the backgrounds, belief systems, and social experiences of interviewees, resulting in an incomplete historiography of the war.
Chinese native Xiaobing Li corrects this oversight in Voices from the Vietnam War: Stories from American, Asian, and Russian Veterans. Li spent seven years gathering hundreds of personal accounts from survivors of the war, accounts that span continents, nationalities, and political affiliations. The twenty-two intimate stories in the book feature the experiences of American, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and North and South Vietnamese veterans, representing the views of both anti-Communist and Communist participants, including Chinese officers of the PLA, a Russian missile-training instructor, and a KGB spy. These narratives humanize and contextualize the war's events while shedding light on aspects of the war previously unknown to Western scholars. Providing fresh perspectives on a long-discussed topic, Voices from the Vietnam War offers a thorough and unique understanding of America's longest war.
Allies at Odds by
Allies at Odds examines America's Vietnam policy from 1961 to 1968 in an international context by focusing on the United States' relationship with its European partners France, West Germany, and Great Britain. The European response to America's Vietnam policy provides a framework to assess this important chapter in recent American history within the wider perspective of international relations. Equally significant, the respective approaches to the "Vietnam question" by the Europeans and Americans reveal the ongoing challenge for nation-states of transcending narrowly defined state-centered policies for a global perspective pursuant of common goals among the trans-Atlantic allies. Blang explores the failure of France, West Germany, and Great Britain to significantly influence American policy-making.
The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War by
The Vietnam War remains a major point of reference in discussions of U.S. foreign policy and national character. The lessons and legacies of the most divisive event in U.S. history in the twentieth century are hotly debated to this day. Written by a renowned scholar of the conflict, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War provides students and researchers with the materials to think seriously about the conflict's many paradoxes and ramifications.
Combat Chaplain by
Chaplain James D. Johnson chose to accompany his men, unarmed, on their daily combat operations, a decision made against the recommendations of his superiors. During what would be the final days for some, he offered his ministry not from a pulpit but on the battlefields—in hot landing zones and rice paddies, in hospitals, aboard ship, and knee-deep in mud. He even found time for baptisms in the muddy Mekong River.
“You've never really lived until you've almost died,” writes Johnson, one of the youngest army chaplains at the time. Through his compelling narration, he takes us into the hearts of frightened young boys and the minds of experienced men. In Combat Chaplain, we live for eight and one-half months with Johnson as he serves in the field with a small unit numbering 350 men. The physical price can be counted with numbers—ninety-six killed and over nine hundred wounded. Only those who paid it can understand the spiritual and psychological price, in a war that raised many difficult moral issues. “It placed my soul in the lost and found department for awhile,” Johnson writes.
Also provided here is an in-depth look at the “Mobile Riverine Operations,” a rare joint effort in which the U.S. Army and Navy combined forces. Johnson describes the workings of the flotilla and the complexity of having these two military branches in combat operations.
This is one man's chronicle of Vietnam and the aftermath of war, of his coming to terms with his posttraumatic “demons,” and his need for healing and cleansing which led him to revisit Vietnam twenty-eight years later. Veterans of the Vietnam war and other wars, their family members, pastors, chaplains, mental health workers, and anyone who has experienced trauma will find this story of interest.
Country of Memory : Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam by
The American experience in the Vietnam War has been the subject of a vast body of scholarly work, yet surprisingly little has been written about how the war is remembered by Vietnamese themselves. The Country of Memory fills this gap in the literature by addressing the subject of history, memory, and commemoration of the Vietnam War in modern day Vietnam. This pathbreaking volume details the nuances, sources, and contradictions in both official and private memory of the War, providing a provocative assessment of social and cultural change in Vietnam since the 1980s. Inspired by the experiences of Vietnamese veterans, artists, authorities, and ordinary peasants, these essays examine a society undergoing a rapid and traumatic shift in politics and economic structure. Each chapter considers specific aspects of Vietnamese culture and society, such as art history, commemorative rituals and literature, gender, and tourism. The contributors call attention to not only the social milieu in which the work of memory takes place, but also the historical context in which different representations of the past are constructed. Drawing from a variety of sources, such as prison memoirs, commemorative shrines, funerary rituals, tourist sites and brochures, advertisements, and films, the authors piece together the disparate representations of the past in Vietnam. With these rare perspectives, The Country of Memory makes an important contribution to debates within postcolonial studies, as well as to the literature on memory, Vietnam, and the Vietnam War.
Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power by
Since the first days of the Iraqi invasion, supporters of the war have cautioned the public not to view this conflict as another Vietnam. They rightfully point to many important distinctions. There is no unified resistance in Iraq. No political or religious leader has been able to galvanize opposition to U.S. intervention the way that Ho Chi Minh did in Vietnam. And it is not likely that 580,000 American troops will find their way to Iraq. However, there are two similarities that may dwarf the thousands of differences. First, in Iraq, like Vietnam, the original rationale for going to war has been discredited and public support has dwindled. Second, in both cases the new justification became building stable societies. There are enormous pitfalls in America's nation building efforts in Iraq as there were in Vietnam. But it is the business we now find ourselves in, and there is no easy retreat from it morally. As American frustration increases, some policy makers are making the deadly mistake of approaching problems in Iraq as if we are facing them for the first time. It is crucial that we apply the lessons of Vietnam wisely and selectively.
Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War by
"‘I never got a chance to be a girl,’ Kate O’Hare Palmer lamented, thirty-four years after her tour as an army nurse in Vietnam. Although proud of having served, she felt that the war she never understood had robbed her of her innocence and forced her to grow up too quickly. As depicted in a photograph taken late in her tour, long hours in the operating room exhausted her both physically and mentally. Her tired eyes and gaunt face reflected th e weariness she felt after treating countless patients, some dying, some maimed, all, like her, forever changed. Still, she learned to work harder and faster than she thought she could, to trust her nursing skills, and to live independently. She developed a way to balance the dangers and benefits of being a woman in the army and in the war. Only fourteen months long, her tour in Vietnam profoundly affected her life and her beliefs."
Such vivid personal accounts abound in historian Kara Dixon Vuic’s compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service.
Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army’s patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight.
Officer, Nurse, Woman brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible―and divisive―war.
A Story for All Americans: Vietnam, Victims and Veterans by
A Story for All Americans: Vietnam, Victims, and Veterans (formerly titled, Touched by the Dragon) details wartime accounts of average servicemen and women-some heroic, some frightening, some amusing, some nearly unbelievable. The work is a historical compendium of fascinating and compelling stories woven together in a theme format. What makes this book truly unique, however, is its absence of literary pretentiousness. Relating oral accounts, the veterans speak in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact way. As seen through the eyes of the veterans, the stories include first-person experiences of infantry soldiers, a flight officer, a medic, a nurse, a combat engineer, an intelligence soldier, and various support personnel. Personalities emerge gradually as the veterans discuss their pre war days, their training and preparation for Vietnam, and their actual in-country experiences. The stories speak of fear and survival: the paranoia of not knowing who or where the enemy was; the bullets, rockets, and mortars that could mangle a body or snuff out a life in an instant; and going home with a CMH--not the Congressional Medal of Honor, but a Casket with Metal Handles. The veterans also speak of friendships and simple acts of kindness. But more importantly, they speak of healing-both physical and mental.
Understanding and Teaching the Vietnam War by
Just as the Vietnam War presented the United States with a series of challenges, it presents a unique challenge to teachers at all levels. The war had a deep and lasting impact on American culture, politics, and foreign policy. Still fraught with controversy, this crucial chapter of the American experience is as rich in teachable moments as it is riddled with potential pitfalls--especially for students a generation or more removed from the events themselves. Addressing this challenge, Understanding and Teaching the Vietnam War offers a wealth of resources for teachers at the secondary and university levels. An introductory section features essays by eminent Vietnam War scholars George Herring and Marilyn Young, who reflect on teaching developments since their first pioneering classes on the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. A methods section includes essays that address specific methods and materials and discuss the use of music and film, the White House tapes, oral histories, the Internet, and other multimedia to infuse fresh and innovative dimensions to teaching the war. A topical section offers essays that highlight creative and effective ways to teach important topics, drawing on recently available primary sources and exploring the war's most critical aspects--the Cold War, decolonization, Vietnamese perspectives, the French in Vietnam, the role of the Hmong, and the Tet Offensive. Every essay in the volume offers classroom-tested pedagogical strategies and detailed practical advice. Taken as a whole, Understanding and Teaching the Vietnam War will help teachers at all levels navigate through cultural touchstones, myths, political debates, and the myriad trouble spots enmeshed within the national memory of one of the most significant moments in American history. Honorable Mention, Franklin Buchanan Prize for Curricular Materials, Association for Asian Studies and the Committee for Teaching about Asia
Vietnam and the American Political Tradition: The Politics of Dissent by
This volume is intended to demonstrate how opposition to the war in Vietnam, the military-industrial complex, and the national security state crystallized in a variety of different and often divergent political traditions. Indeed, for many of the figures discussed, dissent was a decidedly conservative act in that they felt that the war threatened traditional values, mores, and institutions, even though their definitions of what was sacred differed profoundly. To an extent many of the dissenters treated in this volume were at one time Cold War liberals. During the course of the Vietnam War, they came to see the foreign policy which they were supporting, with its willingness to invoke the democratic ideal and at the same time tolerate dictatorships in the cause of anticommunism, as morally and politically corrupt. Most dissenters increasingly came to perceive cold war liberalism as a radical departure that threatened the fundamental ideals of the republic.
Vietnam at War by
One of the first books to look at how the Vietnamese themselves experienced the wars for Vietnam, including both the French and the American wars. Combining political, social, and cultural history, Bradley examines how the war was seen both by top policy makers and also everyday soldiers and civilians in both North and South Vietnam. - ;The Vietnam War tends to conjure up images of American soldiers battling an elusive enemy in thick jungle, the thudding of helicopters overhead. But there were in fact many Vietnam wars - an anticolonial war with France, a cold war turned hot with the United States, a civil war between North and South Vietnam and among the southern Vietnamese, a revolutionary war of ideas over what should guide Vietnamese society into its postcolonial future, and finally a war of memories after the official end of hostilities with the fall of Saigon in 1975. This book looks at how the Vietnamese themselves experienced all of these conflicts, showing how the wars for Vietnam were rooted in fundamentally conflicting visions of what an independent Vietnam should mean that in many ways remain unresolved to this day. Drawing upon twenty years of research, Mark Philip Bradley examines the thinking and the behaviour of the key wartime decision-makers in Hanoi and Saigon, while at the same time exploring how ordinary Vietnamese, northerners and southerners, men and women, soldiers and civilians, urban elites and rural peasants, radicals and conservatives, came to understand the thirty years of bloody warfare that unfolded around them - and how they made sense of its aftermath.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History by
The Vietnam War remains a topic of extraordinary interest, not least because of striking parallels between that conflict and more recent fighting in the Middle East. In The Vietnam War, Mark Atwood Lawrence draws upon the latest research in archives around the world to offer readers a superb account of a key moment in U.S. as well as global history.While focusing on American involvement between 1965 and 1975, Lawrence offers an unprecedentedly complete picture of all sides of the war, notably by examining the motives that drove the Vietnamese communists and their foreign allies. Moreover, the book carefully considers both the long- and short-term origins of the war. Lawrence examines the rise of Vietnamese communism in the early twentieth century and reveals how Cold War anxieties of the 1940s and 1950s set the United States on the road to intervention. Of course, the heart of the book covers the "American war," ranging from the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to the impact of the Tet Offensive on American public opinion, Lyndon Johnson's withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race, Richard Nixon's expansion of the war into Cambodia and Laos, and the problematic peace agreement of 1973, which ended American military involvement. Finally, the book explores the complex aftermath of the war--its enduring legacy in American books, film, and political debate, as well as Vietnam's struggles with severe social and economic problems.A compact and authoritative primer on an intensely relevant topic, this well-researched and engaging volume offers an invaluable overview of the Vietnam War.