<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: THE BEST BOOK ON THE VIETNAM WAR TO DATE
Review: Despite its unfortunate title, this is the best guide to the history of the Vietnam war available. Dr. Maga has mastered the sources and fully understands the various interpretations regarding the war. As a result this book is an expert synthesis of original and earlier scholarship which is of value to both the expert and the general reader. Two aspects of this study are worthy of special note. First is Dr. Maga's view of the war as "America's Thirty-Years War", which allows him to take in a more comprehensive, longer-range view of the conflict. Second, his placing the war in the context of US relations with east Asia generally is a valuable reminder of the greater regional issues at stake in America's Vietnam efforts. As our leading scholar of post-World War II relations between the US and East Asia, Dr. Maga is uniquely qualified to provide this vital perspective. The fact that the Vietnam War still rages in some minds is proven by the earlier reviews of this fine book. There seems to be general agreement that the Vietnam War was a failure for the US. Paths diverge over the reasons for this failure. Some, such as the earlier reviewers, seem to take the position that Vietnam was a praiseworthy effort sabotaged by traitors in the press and on the streets and anyone who disagrees with this analysis must be some sort of "leftist" himself. But Dr. Maga is no leftist; he is a realist. He understands the essential truth of our Vietnam experience: that it was a mistake based upon our sometimes willful ignorance of the circumstances and situation in Southeast Asia itself. There is nothing in this book that suggests that Dr. Maga does not believe communism was not worth opposing. The strategy was sound but the tactics failed. The US never confronted communism by force everywhere. We did not do so in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, or effectively in Cuba at any time. We picked our spots. In Vietnam, we picked the wrong one. Dr. Maga's admirable book shows how and why we made such a horrible mistake and I highly recommend it to everybody especially for use in college survey and specialized courses.
Rating: 
Summary: A good place to start
Review: Having gained an interest in the war nobody seems willing to discuss, I started reading about the Vietnam war about a year ago. During this time I've read some pretty heavy books and some very moving personal accounts, yet found it difficult to recieve an overall picture of the war. This book does a great job of giving that background story and very general sort of history from which to build on. I must admit that I find the comments that the book may not be entirely accurate somewhat unsettling, but I still think that the book has great value. In High School and even college I recieved virtually no instruction on the Vietnam war, and having to start from scratch I found this book very valuable. In the end, it may not be the definative history of the Vietnam war, but if you take it for what it is it doesn't have to be.
Rating:
Summary: A good place to start
Review: Having gained an interest in the war nobody seems willing to discuss, I started reading about the Vietnam war about a year ago. During this time I've read some pretty heavy books and some very moving personal accounts, yet found it difficult to recieve an overall picture of the war. This book does a great job of giving that background story and very general sort of history from which to build on. I must admit that I find the comments that the book may not be entirely accurate somewhat unsettling, but I still think that the book has great value. In High School and even college I recieved virtually no instruction on the Vietnam war, and having to start from scratch I found this book very valuable. In the end, it may not be the definative history of the Vietnam war, but if you take it for what it is it doesn't have to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Did he really research this book?
Review: On Page 239, the part about Hamburger Hill, the author says the Marines were fired upon from heavily dug in NVA. This was an 101st Airborne Battle, not the Marine Corps. The 3rd Brigade,and units of the 2nd Brigade of the 101st fought in this battle. I hope the rest of this book isn't as poorly researched as Page 239. I was a member of D/2/501 Inf, 101st Airborne Div., so I know about what I speak.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad History
Review: The other books in this series are quite good -- this is a bizarre disappointment. I am not sure what the author is getting at -- 8 pages of coverage of Indonesia, including the downing of CIA pilot Allen Pope? This is an interesting story but has about as much to do with Vietnam as whether Margaret Thatcher prefers martinis to manhattans. The author completely mangles the significance of the Tet offensive -- a military rout but a propaganda victory for the North -- and actually claims the North Vietnamese were not interested in domestic American political reaction!! (It's how they won the war, as they are currently the first to tell you). The leftist bias shows too -- lots of coverage of the "antiwar" movement but one searches in vain for any stories about GIs. Can't even find any mention of General Hershey or the draft, or the building of the Wall (one tiny mention on p. 4 in the context of discussing how many women served in Nam!), downplaying of the NVA/VC massacre in Hue of 3-5,000 innocent people and their families but lots of discussion of My Lai, etc., etc. Not a good introduction to the subject. Not good at all. Almost any other book on Vietnam is a better place to start, including Stewart O'Nan's college anthology or his novel The Names of the Dead, or COL Harry Summers Atlas of the Vietnam War.And, yes, I know whereof I speak -- served in Vietnam in the US Army in 1968-69.
Rating:
Summary: Half the Story Reasonably Presented
Review: This book is very similar to the Dummies guide to the Vietnam conflict. At my book store there are 150 books on Vietnam covering 6 shelves with 20 to 25 books per shelf. Most books are personal accounts or on the weapons and military methods. A few are more socio-political. Every one of the above 150 books is essentially from the American perspective. For example in the present book near the back of this 350 plus page book there is an analysis of the 58,000 US combatants killed in action, i.e.: how many navy, air force, marines, army, etc. were killed. The book covers the history of the conflict in terms of what Ho Chi Minh wants to accomplish and then what is the US response. The fighting covers decades in mostly chronological order. It discusses the politicians, the cabinet members, the DOD people, the generals, the conflicts, the weapons, the geography etc. So overall one gets a reasonable picture of the conflict in a summary form. There are black and white drawings, maps, photographs, quotations, historical notes, and special notes and inserts. If you were in the war and you wanted your son or daughter to get a quick idea of the conflict, start to finish this would be a reasonable summary book, or perhaps a gateway book to the subject. I would rate this book ahead of the Dummies book. What is missing from this book and most others is the utter devastation caused to the stoic peoples of Vietnam by their own fighting and by the US invasion. Millions were killed and large parts of Vietnam were destroyed by herbicides. These events are not listed nor are they seriously acknowledged. So in that way the book tells only half the story and conveniently ignores the pointless destruction (since the US ended up withdrawing in the end). We get to understand the US politicians and what they did, and the actions of the US armed forces in some detail, but we somehow forgot about the millions of victims. Jack in Toronto
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This is not really a "Complete Idiot's Guide". It's true that the grand picture is important, you have to know the settings, the histories, people's reactions, and the struggles of political forces, but how can it be a beginner's "Guide" to Vietnam War if the military aspects are not covered adequately?
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This is not really a "Complete Idiot's Guide". It's true that the grand picture is important, you have to know the settings, the histories, people's reactions, and the struggles of political forces, but how can it be a beginner's "Guide" to Vietnam War if the military aspects are not covered adequately?
Rating:
Summary: Just what I had in mind.
Review: This isn't a book that Henry Kissinger needs to read. It's a book for those of us who feel like we don't know what happened during the Vietnam era and who want to be able to converse halfway intelligently about it. I did not find the approach bizarre at all. The section on Indonesia, for example, was one of the book's best parts in that it attempted to show the the US's view of Vietnam involvement was based upon its (America's) experience with Indonesia. This section compared Indonesia and Vietnam in a variety of ways in order to show that American involvement in Vietnam, while ultimately disastrous, may have been partly motivated by our hope that events would unfold the same way there as they had in Indonesia.
<< 1 >>
|
