Vietnam

Vietnam

Nearly 40 years after its murky end, Vietnam continues to be the most controversial war in American history. Despite the vast catalog of books and articles written about the war, readers are still hard pressed to find a definitive account explaining how the United States, which won virtually every battle, lost the war. Scholars and historians, with the exception of a very few, attempt to answer this question by isolating their efforts to specific issues regarding the war—military, diplomacy, domestic policy, social or cultural. While these accounts are helpful and important, the big question remains: Why did we lose the war? This book provides the most comprehensive and conclusive answers to date. Written by John Prados, one of the most respected and prolific Cold War historians of our time, Vietnam takes complete advantage of all the existing research—including newly available presidential tapes and recently declassified documents—to deliver an astonishingly learned and detailed yet impressively accessible study. In undertaking this massive project, Prados was largely inspired by the mishandling of the war in Iraq: “We understand,” he states, “that history unrolls as tragedy and repeats as farce. . . . Current efforts to rely on [Vietnam] as historical analogy for Iraq indicate the need for a fresh review.” He proceeds to reconstruct events in Vietnam, from the end of World War II to our departure in 1975. One of Prados’ many notable achievements is his in-depth coverage of developments during the Eisenhower administration that affected future events in Vietnam—a critical period too-often overlooked in the existing body of literature. He also examines another, oft-ignored aspect that severely affected our progress (to which he refers as “an elephant in the room of historical analysis on Vietnam”): the competence of those at the very center of the struggle—North and South Vietnam—and American policy regarding it. Finally, Prados’ third topic of concentration is the political castigation of the war’s opponents at home, which helped ensure that failed policies remained well intact. Prados weaves together his dominant themes to compellingly argue that the range of choices available to America’s leadership dramatically narrowed each year due to tragic misunderstandings of realities and ignorance of fact—a depressing pattern, many of the elements of which he sees occurring in Iraq today. A rare work that succeeds in encompassing a vast array of issues without sacrificing depth of detail and quality of insight, Vietnam will doubtless be considered the magnum opus of one of today’s most eminent scholars of the Vietnam War. Readers interested in this period of history simply cannot afford to pass up this definitive account.

Hardcover: 704 pages

Publisher: Univ. Press Of Kansas ( April 21, 2009 )

Item #: 18-7045

ISBN: 9780700616343

Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 x 1.1 inches

Product Weight: 35.0 ounces