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Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal
Zinn’s compelling case against the Vietnam War, now with a new introduction. Of the many books that challenged the Vietnam War, Howard Zinn’s stands out as one of the best—and most influential. It helped sparked national debate on the war. It includes a powerful speech written by Zinn that President Johnson should have given to lay out the case for ending the war. Includes a new introduction by the author.
150 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
4 people are currently reading
236 people want to read
About the author
Howard Zinn
246 books2,870 followersHoward Zinn was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist intellectual and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States in 1980. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, A Young People's History of the United States.
Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (Beacon Press, 1994), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at the age of 87.
Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (Beacon Press, 1994), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at the age of 87.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 11, 2009
I bought the 1st edition of this book from a dusty attic in a bookshop in Bangkok. He wrote it as a refutation, at the time, of the refusal of the US to consider withdrawal from Vietnam as an option (1968 I think). I just think Howard Zinn is so fucking rad.
March 19, 2021
It turns out the Vietnam War was a bad idea. Who would've thought? Howard Zinn did. Civil Rights activists did. Scrappy college students did. People all over the world did. Even the fools who led the war did.
In retrospect, Zinn argues the obvious. However, he was participating in a discourse at the time where the turmoils of the present make everyone a little bit more oblivious. The idea of _withdrawal_, of a bunch of rice farmers besting the American empire in a competition of wills, was simply out of the question and Zinn in 1967 forces a clear-minded reckoning in this tightly argued $1.25 book.
I'm about 50 years too late to joining the arguments that the American invasion of Vietnam was boneheaded. Since the war, American military nutjobs have often evoked the specter of Vietnam as a warning against American intervention. "We can't turn [insert_middle-eastern_country_here] into a Vietnam," they say. Given the American troops still at [insert_middle-eastern_country_here], they are not so good at following their own advice. The word "Vietnam" in their mouths is a failed political project of the military industrial complex — not a country of people where the people were killed and its land poisoned because some white-collared poindexter made a pithy remark about dominos.
At the risk of using "Vietnam" as another metaphor, what are the "Vietnam[s]" today for those who would have been against the war? In other words, what are the contradictions in today's society that are such an affront to morality that decades down the line, that it will be painfully obvious to all that we really fucked up. Elon Musk's hyperloop? Greenhouse gas emissions? Mass shootings? Policing? Capitalism? The list today (like it was back in 1967) is endless and pressing.
In this work specifically against the Vietnam War, Zinn offers a universal toolkit for expanding political imagination to include goals as "unimaginable" as withdrawal. "Politics is not the art of the probable," he writes. "It is the art of the possible. And it is our job to insist that the politicians expand their narrow view of what is possible."
In retrospect, Zinn argues the obvious. However, he was participating in a discourse at the time where the turmoils of the present make everyone a little bit more oblivious. The idea of _withdrawal_, of a bunch of rice farmers besting the American empire in a competition of wills, was simply out of the question and Zinn in 1967 forces a clear-minded reckoning in this tightly argued $1.25 book.
I'm about 50 years too late to joining the arguments that the American invasion of Vietnam was boneheaded. Since the war, American military nutjobs have often evoked the specter of Vietnam as a warning against American intervention. "We can't turn [insert_middle-eastern_country_here] into a Vietnam," they say. Given the American troops still at [insert_middle-eastern_country_here], they are not so good at following their own advice. The word "Vietnam" in their mouths is a failed political project of the military industrial complex — not a country of people where the people were killed and its land poisoned because some white-collared poindexter made a pithy remark about dominos.
At the risk of using "Vietnam" as another metaphor, what are the "Vietnam[s]" today for those who would have been against the war? In other words, what are the contradictions in today's society that are such an affront to morality that decades down the line, that it will be painfully obvious to all that we really fucked up. Elon Musk's hyperloop? Greenhouse gas emissions? Mass shootings? Policing? Capitalism? The list today (like it was back in 1967) is endless and pressing.
In this work specifically against the Vietnam War, Zinn offers a universal toolkit for expanding political imagination to include goals as "unimaginable" as withdrawal. "Politics is not the art of the probable," he writes. "It is the art of the possible. And it is our job to insist that the politicians expand their narrow view of what is possible."
February 19, 2018
An eloquent and passionate argument against the American war in Vietnam. Zinn exposes the deep arrogance, flawed thinking and propaganda that led the US into war and was keeping them in Vietnam in 1967.
It is hard to believe that people to this day argue that this war was some sort of “mistake” or “well meaning” when the arguments against involvement and for immediate withdrawal were so clear at the time. The key inhibitor to this that Zinn proposes is the “loss of prestige”, which demonstrates that maintaining a macho stance was of much more value to military strategists than hundreds of thousands of human lives.
The US clearly learned nothing from this misadventure and continues to follow similar reasoning in foreign policy.
It is hard to believe that people to this day argue that this war was some sort of “mistake” or “well meaning” when the arguments against involvement and for immediate withdrawal were so clear at the time. The key inhibitor to this that Zinn proposes is the “loss of prestige”, which demonstrates that maintaining a macho stance was of much more value to military strategists than hundreds of thousands of human lives.
The US clearly learned nothing from this misadventure and continues to follow similar reasoning in foreign policy.
July 2, 2016
Một quyển sách Mỹ mà người Việt cần đọc để hiểu đúng và hiểu đủ về lịch sử đất nước mình.
July 31, 2021
Howard Zinn wrote this book in 1967. It was intended, as its title suggests, to prompt a withdrawal by the American government to bring home its troops and end the Vietnam war. It took until April of 1975 to end the war.
It's difficult to say whether this book had any lasting effect on the thinking of LBJ's war policy, but a short time after it was published he declared that he would not run for re-election in the approaching presidential election of 1968.
The book ends with a speech that Zinn wrote for Johnson to deliver. He never delivered the speech. He left office before the war ended, and he died in January 1973, fifteen months before the war did end.
In the end, this book is a historical document of the contentions in American minds about the war and its purposes. It a good starting point if you want to delve deeper into American war policy or the history of the Vietnam War itself.
It's difficult to say whether this book had any lasting effect on the thinking of LBJ's war policy, but a short time after it was published he declared that he would not run for re-election in the approaching presidential election of 1968.
The book ends with a speech that Zinn wrote for Johnson to deliver. He never delivered the speech. He left office before the war ended, and he died in January 1973, fifteen months before the war did end.
In the end, this book is a historical document of the contentions in American minds about the war and its purposes. It a good starting point if you want to delve deeper into American war policy or the history of the Vietnam War itself.
January 28, 2024
Howard Zinn is my hero...
January 16, 2023
Zinn does a wonderful job using facts selectively to establish the narrative that communism is not spread from without (see Polish-Soviet war as a counter example), and villifiying the US while significantly downplaying DRV barbarity, and USSR/PRC involvement. This is not to say he is entirerly incorrect in the South Vietnamese government's short comings inwhich there were many, nor failures in US military policy and action. However analysis of the war over the past decades show that not all of Zinn's exmaples of US atrocity are accurate, nor exemplify the actions of the majority of US and allie military operations. Zinn's bias and support of socialist systems results in a text that factually is incomplete and intellectually disingenuous to understanding geopolitics of the era. What the text does provide the reader is a window into the mind of the activist academic, who's writtings were able to increase support for progressive and revolutionary movements in western society, among many other writers.
January 17, 2023
I had read excerpts of this book in many different avenues. The message is clear. War is profitable for those who seek to maintain the status quo on the backs of those who could and should be freed from the sins of colonialism. The fact that they US government was implicit in this behaviour is dauntingly haunting. The fact that thousands of American soldiers were killed along with untold Vietnamese civilians and soldiers for this evil act does not make it palable for the American political digestive tract . It is a nauseating tale. Being a Vet compounds the fear and anger. Millions for bombs ...a paucity amount for health. education. and welfare of american civilians...whose only sin was being born poor.
April 14, 2017
I find his logic is very flawed. As a Vietnamese, I cannot say how much I hate the anti-Vietnam war movement, and Howard Zinn.
One of the logic was that the Japanese weren't troubled about Vietnam turning to a Communist, and the US did. Because Japan is closer to Vietnam so it is more logical that it should worry about the situation more the the US? I find it very irritating and flawed.
Communist is the biggest threat to humanity and Christians, it killed more people than Hitler, than Nazi, than any other genocide in the history combined.
My country and people are like shit now!!
One of the logic was that the Japanese weren't troubled about Vietnam turning to a Communist, and the US did. Because Japan is closer to Vietnam so it is more logical that it should worry about the situation more the the US? I find it very irritating and flawed.
Communist is the biggest threat to humanity and Christians, it killed more people than Hitler, than Nazi, than any other genocide in the history combined.
My country and people are like shit now!!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews