The Vietnam War

Author: Geoffrey Ward
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1984897748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 866

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Based on the celebrated PBS television series, the complete text of an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict, “a significant milestone [that] will no doubt do much to determine how the war is understood for years to come.” —The Washington Post More than forty years have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but its memory continues to loom large in the national psyche. In this intimate history, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns have crafted a fresh and insightful account of the long and brutal conflict that reunited Vietnam while dividing the United States as nothing else had since the Civil War. From the Gulf of Tonkin and the Tet Offensive to Hamburger Hill and the fall of Saigon, Ward and Burns trace the conflict that dogged three American presidents and their advisers. But most of the voices that echo from these pages belong to less exalted men and women—those who fought in the war as well as those who fought against it, both victims and victors—willing for the first time to share their memories of Vietnam as it really was. A magisterial tour de force, The Vietnam War is an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict.

China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975

Author: Qiang Zhai
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807876194
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
In the quarter century after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Beijing assisted Vietnam in its struggle against two formidable foes, France and the United States. Indeed, the rise and fall of this alliance is one of the most crucial developments in the history of the Cold War in Asia. Drawing on newly released Chinese archival sources, memoirs and diaries, and documentary collections, Qiang Zhai offers the first comprehensive exploration of Beijing's Indochina policy and the historical, domestic, and international contexts within which it developed. In examining China's conduct toward Vietnam, Zhai provides important insights into Mao Zedong's foreign policy and the ideological and geopolitical motives behind it. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he shows, Mao considered the United States the primary threat to the security of the recent Communist victory in China and therefore saw support for Ho Chi Minh as a good way to weaken American influence in Southeast Asia. In the late 1960s and 1970s, however, when Mao perceived a greater threat from the Soviet Union, he began to adjust his policies and encourage the North Vietnamese to accept a peace agreement with the United States.

LIFE The Vietnam Wars

Author: The Editors of LIFE
Publisher: Time Inc. Books
ISBN: 1683305752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Book Description
LIFE covered just as vividly as the war in Southeast Asia, was waged on the campuses and at the conventions. In addition, Larry Burrows — the late father-in-law of LIFE Books' current Director of Photography — was the first photographer to document a war primarily in color, because LIFE had figured out how to accommodate more color pages with the new printing methods of the 1960s. The pictures are as arresting today as they were in their time, and all of that photography will be here in this stunning, commemorative volume. This special book will also include new interviews with veterans, a special photo essay on the history of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, a pictorial report on unified Vietnam today, a revisiting of LIFE's editorial treatment of the war, an account of legendary photographers (Burrows, Robert Capa) lost during the era in Southeast Asia (including a reminiscence by Burrows's son, Russell, and daughter-in-law, LIFE's own Bobbi Baker Burrows), a report on the other photographs that made history (Eddie Adams's execution shot, Nick Ut's "Napalm Girl," including Joe McNally's revisit with the grown woman in Canada, exclusively for LIFE).

The Vietnam War

Author: Mark Atwood Lawrence
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199793158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
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.

The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War

Author: David L. Anderson
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231507380
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
More than a quarter of a century after the last Marine Corps Huey left the American embassy in Saigon, the lessons and legacies of the most divisive war in twentieth-century American history are as hotly debated as ever. Why did successive administrations choose little-known Vietnam as the "test case" of American commitment in the fight against communism? Why were the "best and brightest" apparently blind to the illegitimacy of the state of South Vietnam? Would Kennedy have pulled out had he lived? And what lessons regarding American foreign policy emerged from the war? The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War helps readers understand this tragic and complex conflict. The book contains both interpretive information and a wealth of facts in easy-to-find form. Part I provides a lucid narrative overview of contested issues and interpretations in Vietnam scholarship. Part II is a mini-encyclopedia with descriptions and analysis of individuals, events, groups, and military operations. Arranged alphabetically, this section enables readers to look up isolated facts and specialized terms. Part III is a chronology of key events. Part IV is an annotated guide to resources, including films, documentaries, CD-ROMs, and reliable Web sites. Part V contains excerpts from historical documents and statistical data.

Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars

Author: Mark Philip Bradley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199924163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
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 wars and has continued to be asked in the decades since they ended. This volume brings together the work of eleven scholars to examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that have marked the contested terrain of Vietnam War scholarship. Editors Marilyn Young and Mark Bradley's superb group of renowned contributors spans the generations--including those who were active during wartime, along with scholars conducting research in Vietnamese sources and uncovering new sources in the United States, former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern and Western Europe. Ranging in format from top-down reconsiderations of critical decision-making moments in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon, to microhistories of the war that explore its meanings from the bottom up, these essays comprise the most up-to-date collection of scholarship on the controversial historiography of the Vietnam Wars.

The Vietnam War

Author: Barbara Diggs
Publisher: Nomad Press
ISBN: 161930659X
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
More than 58,000 American troops and military personnel died in the humid jungles and muddy rivers of Vietnam during the 20-year conflict called the Vietnam War. Why? What were they fighting for? And how could the world’s most powerful and technologically advanced military be defeated by a small, poverty-stricken country? These questions have haunted the U.S. government, the military, and the American public for nearly a half century. In The Vietnam War, kids ages 12 to 15 explore the global conditions and history that gave rise to the Vietnam War, the reasons why the United States became increasingly embroiled in the conflict, and the varied causes of its shocking defeat. As readers learn about how the fear of the spread of communism spurred the United States to enter a war that was erupting on the other side of the world, they find themselves immersed in the mood and mindset of the Vietnam Era. Through links to online primary sources, including speeches, letters, photos, and songs, readers become familiar with the reality of combat life for young American soldiers, the frustration of military advisors as they failed to subdue the Viet Cong, and the empty promises made by U.S. presidents to soothe an uneasy public. The Vietnam War also pays close attention to the development of a massive antiwar movement and counterculture that divided the country into “hawks” and “doves.” In-depth essential questions help middle schoolers analyze primary sources and develop their own evidence-supported views on a range of issues. The Vietnam War also fosters critical thinking skills through projects such as creating antiwar and pro-war demonstration slogans, writing letters from the perspective of a U.S. soldier and a south Vietnamese citizen, and building arguments for and against the media’s coverage of the war. Additional learning materials include engaging illustrations, maps, a glossary, a bibliography, and resources for further independent learning. The Vietnam War is one book in a set of four that explore great events of the twentieth century. Other titles in this set include Globalization: Why We Care About Faraway Events; World War II: From the Rise of the Nazi Party to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb; and The Space Race: How the Cold War Put Humans on the Moon.

The Vietnam War

Author: DK
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Ltd
ISBN: 0241487188
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description
The Vietnam War remains one of the most heroic and heartbreaking events in history. This definitive e-guide charts the unforgettable story of the world's first televised war. Hundreds of insightful images and a compelling narrative combine to chronicle this catastrophic conflict.?? From 1955, the communist government of North Vietnam waged war against South Vietnam and its main ally, the USA. Over the course of two decades of hostility and warfare, the number of casualties reached an incomprehensible three million people. Detailed descriptions of every episode, including Operation Passage to Freedom and the evacuation of the American embassy in Saigon, tell the stories in iconic photographs and eyewitness accounts. Discover the real people behind the conflict, with gripping biographies of key figures, including Henry Kissinger, General Thieu, President Nixon, and Pol Pot. This incredible visual record is supported by locator maps, at-a-glance timelines, archive photography, and key quotations to ensure an all-encompassing experience.?? The Vietnam War is an essential historic reference to help humanity learn the lessons of suffering and sacrifice from one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century.

Footprints of War

Author: David Andrew Biggs
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295743875
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
When American forces arrived in Vietnam, they found themselves embedded in historic village and frontier spaces already shaped by many past conflicts. American bases and bombing targets followed spatial and political logics influenced by the footprints of past wars in central Vietnam. The militarized landscapes here, like many in the world�s historic conflict zones, continue to shape post-war land-use politics. Footprints of War traces the long history of conflict-produced spaces in Vietnam, beginning with early modern wars and the French colonial invasion in 1885 and continuing through the collapse of the Saigon government in 1975. The result is a richly textured history of militarized landscapes that reveals the spatial logic of key battles such as the Tet Offensive. Drawing on extensive archival work and years of interviews and fieldwork in the hills and villages around the city of Hue to illuminate war�s footprints, David Biggs also integrates historical Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data, using aerial, high-altitude, and satellite imagery to render otherwise placeless sites into living, multidimensional spaces. This personal and multilayered approach yields an innovative history of the lasting traces of war in Vietnam and a model for understanding other militarized landscapes.

America, the Vietnam War, and the World

Author: Andreas W. Daum
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521008761
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Book Description
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."