Vietnam And America

No single event since World War II has marked this country s foreign policy and national image as deeply as did the war in Vietnam. Vietnam and America is a complete history of the war, as documented in essays by leading experts and in original source material. With generous selections from the documentary records, the book dispels distortions and illuminates in depth the many facets of the war, from Vietnam s history before the war, to Washington s insider policy making, to troop perspectives, to the impact back on the home front. In essays introducing each major stage of the war, the editors elucidate the issues, foreign policy choices, and consequences of U.S. involvement. Substantial headnotes put each document in historical perspective. This comprehensive anthology is an invaluable reference for anyone who wants to understand the Vietnam War."

In this study of the encounter between Vietnam and the United States from 1919 to 1950, Mark Bradley fundamentally reconceptualizes the origins of the Cold War in Vietnam and the place of postcolonial Vietnam in the history of the twentieth century. Among the first Americans granted a visa to undertake research in Vietnam since the war, Bradley draws on newly available Vietnamese-language primary sources and interviews as well as archival materials from France, Great Britain, and the United States. Bradley uses these sources to reveal an imagined America that occupied a central place in Vietnamese political discourse, symbolizing the qualities that revolutionaries believed were critical for reshaping their society. American policymakers, he argues, articulated their own imagined Vietnam, a deprecating vision informed by the conviction that the country should be remade in America's image. Contrary to other historians, who focus on the Soviet-American rivalry and ignore the policies and perceptions of Vietnamese actors, Bradley contends that the global discourse and practices of colonialism, race, modernism, and postcolonial state-making were profoundly implicated in--and ultimately transcended--the dynamics of the Cold War in shaping Vietnamese-American relations.

Written by a cultural historian, this text offers a wide-ranging exploration of the causes, meaning and continuing significance of the American war in Vietnam, arguing that the war was not a mistake, or a quagmire but a defining event in global history.

Publisher's description: "This book presents new perspectives on the Vietnam War, its global repercussions, and the role of this war in modern history. The volume reveals 'America's War' as an international event that reverberated all over the world: in domestic settings of numerous nation-states, combatants and non-combatants alike, as well as in transnational relations and alliance systems. The volume thereby covers a wide geographical range-from Berkeley and Berlin to Cambodia and Canberra. The essays address political, military, and diplomatic issues no less than cultural and intellectual consequences of 'Vietnam'. The authors also set the Vietnam War in comparison to other major conflicts in world history; they cover over three centuries, and develop general insights into the tragedies and trajectories of military conflicts as phenomena of modern societies in general. For the first time, 'America's War' is thus depicted as a truly global event whose origins and characteristics deserve an interdisciplinary treatment."

This controversial and timely book about the American experience in Vietnam provides the first full exploration of the perspectives of the North Vietnamese leadership before, during, and after the war. Herbert Y. Schandler offers unique insights into the mindsets of the North Vietnamese and their response to diplomatic and military actions of the Americans, laying out the full scale of the disastrous U.S. political and military misunderstandings of Vietnamese history and motivations. Including frank quotes from Vietnamese leaders, the book offers important new knowledge that allows us to learn invaluable lessons from the perspective of a victorious enemy. Unlike most military officers who served in Vietnam, Schandler is convinced the war was unwinnable, no matter how long America stayed the course or how many resources were devoted to it. He is remarkably qualified to make these judgments as an infantry commander during the Vietnam War, a Pentagon policymaker, and a scholar who taught at West Point and National Defense University. His extensive personal interviews with North Vietnamese are drawn from his many trips to Hanoi after the war. Schandler provides not only a definitive analysis of the American failure in Vietnam but a crucial foundation for exploring the potential for success in the current guerrilla wars the United States is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Drawing upon both archival research and his own military experiences in Vietnam, Willbanks focuses on military operations from 1969 through 1975. He begins by analyzing the events that led to a change in U.S. strategy in 1969 and the subsequent initiation of Vietnamization. He then critiques the implementation of that policy and the combat performance of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN), which finally collapsed in 1975.

An in-depth look at the strategy and tactics of the visionary commander who beat the United States in the Vietnam War. General Vo Nguyen Giap was the commander in chief of the communist armed forces during two of his country's most difficult conflicts—the first against Vietnam's colonial masters, the French, and the second against the most powerful nation on earth, the United States. After long and bloody conflicts, he defeated both Western powers and their Vietnamese allies, forever changing modern warfare. In Giap, military historian James A. Warren dives deep into the conflict to bring to life a revolutionary general and reveal the groundbreaking strategies that defeated world powers against incredible odds. Synthesizing ideas and tactics from an extraordinary range of sources, Giap was one of the first to realize that war is more than a series of battles between two armies and that victory can be won through the strength of a society's social fabric. As America's wars in the Middle East rage on, this is an important and timely look at a man who was a master at defeating his enemies even as they thought they were winning.

This collection of essays and documents, written and compiled by four distinguished historians, is an essential source book for anyone seeking to understand the causes, character, and consequences of American involvement in Vietnam. Through a wide variety of documents—including newly opened presidential papers, congressional debates, military reports, treaties, and newspaper articles—the authors trace the origins of the war back to pre–World War II attitudes and then proceed through the development of the "domino theory" and the policies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon to the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. Each of the editors has written an introductory essay to place the documents in heir historical context. These essays explore the controversial questions raised by Vietnam—such as whether each president understood what he was getting into, whether (as some now charge) the media and public opinion undermined America's ability to win the war, whether official statements were intended to mislead the American people, and, most fundamentally, why America was in Vietnam.

Based on a variety of classified military records, Lewy provides the first systematic analysis of the course of the Vietnam War, the reasons for the failure of American strategy and tactics, and the causes of the final collapse of South Vietnam.

Now in its 7th edition, Vietnam: An American Ordeal continues to provide a thorough account of the failed American effort to create a viable, non-Communist state in Southern Vietnam. Unlike most general histories of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which are either conventional diplomatic or military histories, this volume synthesizes the perspectives to explore both dimensions of the struggle in greater depth, elucidating more of the complexities of the U.S.-Vietnam entanglement. It explains why Americans tried so hard for so long to stop the spread of Communism into Indochina and why they failed. In this new edition, George Donelson Moss expands and refines key moments of the Vietnam War and its aftermath, including the strategic and diplomatic background for United States’ involvement in Indochina during World War II; how the French, with British and American support, regained control in southern Vietnam, Saigon, and the vicinity, in the fall, 1945; the account for the formation of SEATO; and the account of the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. The text has also been revised and updated to align with recently published monographic literature on the time period. The accessible writing will enable students to gain a solid understanding of how and why the United States went to war against The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and why it lost the long, bitter conflict. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of American history, the history of foreign relations, and the Vietnam War itself.