Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives

by Mark Philip Bradley (editor), Marilyn B. Young (Editor)

Making sense of the wars for Vietnam has had a long history. The question "why Vietnam?" dominated American and Vietnamese political life for much of the length of the wars and has continued to be asked in the decades since they ended. This volume brings together the work of eleven scholars to examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that have marked the contested terrain of Vietnam War scholarship. Editors Marilyn Young and Mark Bradley's superb group of renowned contributors spans the generations--including those who were active during wartime, along with scholars conducting research in Vietnamese sources and uncovering new sources in the United States, former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern and Western Europe. Ranging in format from top-down reconsiderations of critical decision-making moments in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon, to microhistories of the war that explore its meanings from the bottom up, these essays comprise the most up-to-date collection of scholarship
on the controversial historiography of the Vietnam Wars.

Genres: History

318 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2008

Reviews

[Fresno Bob]

Everything you think you know about the Vietnam Wars is more complicated than you think