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Modern Wars in Perspective
A Noble Cause? America and the Vietnam War
Few wars have had such a deep impact on the American people than the Vietnam War.Gerard de Groot's clear-eyed treatment covers the military events, the political and strategic contexts, as well as the social and cultural impact of the war. It's a powerful study which offers fresh insights into the communist revolution and military tactics, the flaws in US strategy and the legacy of the war both for Vietnam and America. An important new study on a subject often masked by sentiment and myth.
- GenresHistory
408 pages, Paperback
First published October 11, 1999
About the author
Gerard J. DeGroot
15 books7 followersSenior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Modern History at the University of St. Andrews.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 14, 2023
This is actually the second time I've read this book, but the first time was about 20 years ago. I remembered that I had found it extremely helpful in understanding the Vietnam War, something I'd felt I had never been taught much about, so it immediately came to mind when I wanted to add Vietnam War books to my home library.
This book IS extremely helpful in understanding an overview AND an in depth perspective of the war. The beginning of the book is a historiography of other Vietnam War books, which I find is always helpful. And then the author continues to give a brief background of France's war in Vietnam prior to the US involvement. The third section of the book takes up the bulk of the reading. (These are my own "sections"; the book isn't really broken up this way.) This middle section follows the war in depth in a chronological way, staying in Vietnam and D.C. and following each president and military leader and their decisions on how to proceed, as well as how these decision played out with the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. This part is REALLY hard to get through. It's interesting, but it's slow reading and bogged me down quite a bit. I could only get through 2 chapters a night. The last few chapters sped by much quicker. They cover a variety of topics pertinent to the war, though not topics that fit in the chronological "retelling" of the war. Topics included the anti-war movement back in the States, a "grunt's" life, Vietnam AFTER the war, etc. One of the author's main points is that he believe all the campus riots and anti-war/hippie movement sentiment really played an insignificant role in the outcomes of the war. He shows that not only did the hippies not encourage other anti-war sentiments, but they alienated would be supporters of their cause. THAT was super interested. This author is very critical of the romanticizing of the peace movements of the 60s and 70s. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, my entire understanding of the 60s-70s is an image of hippies and flower power and singing anti-war songs with our elementary school teachers. I even grew up in a very "hippy" town where we still had hippies all over the place - which was SUPER fun, by the way, although I'm sure they had no better understanding of the 60s and 70s than I did.
There is a great deal about this book that I recommend. However I would not encourage anyone younger than college age to read it. It isn't that it is anti-American. This author is technically a US citizen, though he spent most of his adult life in the UK and felt he had a distanced and therefore more accurate and unbiased view of the extremely tumultuous and emotionally charged era and topic he is writing about. Still, although I am not going to claim the US Government is innocent of horrific and unbelievable atrocities against other nations, and sometimes eve it's own citizens, this author seems to believe there is nothing good, nothing virtuous, nothing redeemable, and nothing wroth praising at all in the leaders of the US during the time of the war, and even into the Reagan administration. He seems to believe none of them are capable of honesty, intelligence, or even humanity. That was off-putting. And that is probably one of the reasons why I don't believe teenagers (or those not quite capable of understanding the immense complexity of human nature) should read this book. Although this book feels SO comprehensive, and that is why I appreciate it so very much, there is no book at all that can cover the absolute Truth, capital T, of the matter. This book, however, is in my opinion, an excellent place to start.
But just as a warning, it made me cry and hurt for the absolute depravity, corruption, and wickedness of so many people. So much suffering. It made me reflect on the 2nd generation Vietnamese kids that lived in my town who I went to school with during high school. I never knew them because they stuck close together, even lived in the same apartment complex, and didn't speak a ton of English (except for one family I knew, whose daughters my age were fully assimilated in the US culture). I wanted to go back and learn their parents' stories. I wish I had known enough and been mature enough back then to make an effort to know and understand them better.
Also, all the acronyms are just way too much.
This book IS extremely helpful in understanding an overview AND an in depth perspective of the war. The beginning of the book is a historiography of other Vietnam War books, which I find is always helpful. And then the author continues to give a brief background of France's war in Vietnam prior to the US involvement. The third section of the book takes up the bulk of the reading. (These are my own "sections"; the book isn't really broken up this way.) This middle section follows the war in depth in a chronological way, staying in Vietnam and D.C. and following each president and military leader and their decisions on how to proceed, as well as how these decision played out with the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. This part is REALLY hard to get through. It's interesting, but it's slow reading and bogged me down quite a bit. I could only get through 2 chapters a night. The last few chapters sped by much quicker. They cover a variety of topics pertinent to the war, though not topics that fit in the chronological "retelling" of the war. Topics included the anti-war movement back in the States, a "grunt's" life, Vietnam AFTER the war, etc. One of the author's main points is that he believe all the campus riots and anti-war/hippie movement sentiment really played an insignificant role in the outcomes of the war. He shows that not only did the hippies not encourage other anti-war sentiments, but they alienated would be supporters of their cause. THAT was super interested. This author is very critical of the romanticizing of the peace movements of the 60s and 70s. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, my entire understanding of the 60s-70s is an image of hippies and flower power and singing anti-war songs with our elementary school teachers. I even grew up in a very "hippy" town where we still had hippies all over the place - which was SUPER fun, by the way, although I'm sure they had no better understanding of the 60s and 70s than I did.
There is a great deal about this book that I recommend. However I would not encourage anyone younger than college age to read it. It isn't that it is anti-American. This author is technically a US citizen, though he spent most of his adult life in the UK and felt he had a distanced and therefore more accurate and unbiased view of the extremely tumultuous and emotionally charged era and topic he is writing about. Still, although I am not going to claim the US Government is innocent of horrific and unbelievable atrocities against other nations, and sometimes eve it's own citizens, this author seems to believe there is nothing good, nothing virtuous, nothing redeemable, and nothing wroth praising at all in the leaders of the US during the time of the war, and even into the Reagan administration. He seems to believe none of them are capable of honesty, intelligence, or even humanity. That was off-putting. And that is probably one of the reasons why I don't believe teenagers (or those not quite capable of understanding the immense complexity of human nature) should read this book. Although this book feels SO comprehensive, and that is why I appreciate it so very much, there is no book at all that can cover the absolute Truth, capital T, of the matter. This book, however, is in my opinion, an excellent place to start.
But just as a warning, it made me cry and hurt for the absolute depravity, corruption, and wickedness of so many people. So much suffering. It made me reflect on the 2nd generation Vietnamese kids that lived in my town who I went to school with during high school. I never knew them because they stuck close together, even lived in the same apartment complex, and didn't speak a ton of English (except for one family I knew, whose daughters my age were fully assimilated in the US culture). I wanted to go back and learn their parents' stories. I wish I had known enough and been mature enough back then to make an effort to know and understand them better.
Also, all the acronyms are just way too much.
Displaying 1 of 1 review