The Columbia History of the Vietnam War

About this book

Rooted in recent scholarship The Columbia History of the Vietnam War offers profound new perspectives on the political historical military and social issues that defined the war and its effect on the United States and Vietnam. Laying the chronological and critical foundations for the volume David L. Anderson opens with an essay on the Vietnam Wars major moments and enduring relevance. Mark Philip Bradley follows with a reexamination of Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism and the Vietminh-led war against French colonialism. Richard H. Immerman revisits Eisenhowers and Kennedys efforts at nation building in South Vietnam and Gary R. Hess reviews Americas military commitment under Kennedy and Johnson. Lloyd C. Gardner investigates the motivations behind Johnsons escalation of force and Robert J. McMahon focuses on the pivotal period before and after the Tet Offensive. Jeffrey P. Kimball then makes sense of Nixons paradoxical decision to end U.S. intervention while pursuing a destructive air war. John Prados and Eric Bergerud devote essays to Americas military strategy while Helen E. Anderson and Robert K. Brigham explore the wars impact on Vietnamese women and urban culture. Melvin Small recounts the domestic tensions created by Americas involvement in Vietnam and Kenton Clymer traces the spread of the war to Laos and Cambodia. Concluding essays by Robert D. Schulzinger and George C. Herring account for the legacy of the war within Vietnamese and American contexts and diagnose the symptoms of the "Vietnam syndrome" evident in later debates about U.S. foreign policy. Americas experience in Vietnam continues to figure prominently in discussions about strategy and defense not to mention within discourse on the identity of the United States as a nation. Andersons expert collection is therefore essential to understanding Americas entanglement in the Vietnam War and the conflicts influence on the nations future interests abroad.