Pavn: People's Army of Vietnam (A Da Capo paperback)

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes we learn
Review: A few years ago I wrote a positive review of Pike's PAVN. Since then, I have learned a few things about the historian's art, and I would like to ammend my earlier review.
Pike's work is not a well-researched scholarly approach to the Vietnam War, but is instead, a biased, poorly researched, emotion laden diatribe. Dau Tranh is not an established and proven strategy, as Pike would have us believe, but only a dream of old NVA generals, who would have liked to have won the war on their terms. That all of the Vietnamese actually lost the war, and are now enslaved in a Communist totalitarian regime, is the end of the war, not some glorious victory of an all-seeing, all-wise NVA strategy. Pike fails to prove his case, has little actual dcoumentary evidence, and his book should not be accepted as anything other than a diatribe.
The true story of the complex, long, bloody and difficult war in South East Asia remains to be told. However, the historiography of the nearly twenty years since this book was first published has shown that the outcome of the war was much more circumstantial and nuanced than Pike would have us believe. It was not this simple!

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes we learn
Review: A few years ago I wrote a positive review of Pike's PAVN. Since then, I have learned a few things about the historian's art, and I would like to ammend my earlier review.
Pike's work is not a well-researched scholarly approach to the Vietnam War, but is instead, a biased, poorly researched, emotion laden diatribe. Dau Tranh is not an established and proven strategy, as Pike would have us believe, but only a dream of old NVA generals, who would have liked to have won the war on their terms. That all of the Vietnamese actually lost the war, and are now enslaved in a Communist totalitarian regime, is the end of the war, not some glorious victory of an all-seeing, all-wise NVA strategy. Pike fails to prove his case, has little actual dcoumentary evidence, and his book should not be accepted as anything other than a diatribe.
The true story of the complex, long, bloody and difficult war in South East Asia remains to be told. However, the historiography of the nearly twenty years since this book was first published has shown that the outcome of the war was much more circumstantial and nuanced than Pike would have us believe. It was not this simple!

Rating:
Summary: The strategy of the other side
Review: Douglas Pike performed a valuable service to history by capturing the essence of the North Vietnamese strategy for victory in the Vietnam War. His explanation of the various techniques used to win not only victory on the battlefield, but, more importantly, strategic and political victories over both the American and South Vietnamese opponents, should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in how the United States lost this war. Well written and researched, this book is both enjoyable and disturbing.

Rating:
Summary: The strategy of the other side
Review: Douglas Pike performed a valuable service to history by capturing the essence of the North Vietnamese strategy for victory in the Vietnam War. His explanation of the various techniques used to win not only victory on the battlefield, but, more importantly, strategic and political victories over both the American and South Vietnamese opponents, should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in how the United States lost this war. Well written and researched, this book is both enjoyable and disturbing.