The Vietnam War: An International History in Documents Illustrated Edition

Well written and researched, yet is short and concise. This book looks to write about the Vietnam wars from a "international history" perspective which gives a reader a very good big picture view of the era. Which is quite a accomplishment due to the long and complicated history of the Vietnamese and foreign powers involved in this piece.

This book will be of great service for laypeople interested in a concise and wide-ranging overview of the Vietnam War. In fact, it would also be a good, safe choice for college history instructors looking for a short text to use in undergraduate classes on the Vietnam War or U.S. foreign relations. A big plus of this book is that Lawrence frames his story widely, giving considerable room for discussion of French colonialism in Vietnam, World War II, and the origins of U.S. involvement, which make up about 1/3 of the book. A second plus is that he provides views from all sides of the conflict, not just the view from Washington. We learn quite a bit about power struggles and disagreements over strategy within the North Vietnamese communist party and with its allies in China and the Soviet Union. For example, it was the big communist powers who pushed Hanoi to accept the 1954 Geneva accord out of fear of provoking U.S. intervention at a time they felt they could not match U.S. power. In his judgment of U.S. policies, Lawrence is solidly in the orthodox camp, repeatedly pointing out that despite short-term successes of U.S. economic aid to the Diem regime, it was doomed due to its internal corruption. The same argument is used to evaluate U.S. military tactics: Successes on the battlefield petered out due to a fundamental flaw in strategic assumptions. Revisionists such as Mark Moyar will surely disagree, but Lawrence does represent the majority opinion among U.S. historians at the moment.The book has no major flaws, but Lawrence's prose isn't exactly lively. At times "The Vietnam War" reads like a textbook. Given its brevity, the book merely alludes to topics such as the experience of soldiers, the effects of chemical warfare, the war in American and Vietnamese memory, etc. But then again, that's when the "for further reading" essay comes in extremely handy. As a solid foundation for further exploration of this major conflict--whether in a classroom or at private leisure--this short text does the job well.

This tells the complete story including the politics that went on, the very naive approach from the American perspective, and the control of the war from Washington instead of boots on the ground. It is very eye opening and tells the true history, not the distorted one from the political perspective in Washington.

I grew up with the words "From Saigon" on the evening news. I was 25 when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese.I realized recently, that I knew nothing about the War in Vietnam other than the media presentation at the time. I started looking for a reasonably short, readable history of the war that did not project someone's political agenda.This book filled that need. The author did not editorialize much (refreshing in today's journalistic world where fact and opinion get blurred by writers).It did not answer the big question for me: why did 58,000 American troops have to die in Vietnam? Of course, that would be a matter of opinion. It did provide perspective about the world events that surrounded the war and put it into context for me.I would recommend it to anyone looking for some knowledge of this war that so changed the landscape of US politics.

Product arrived on time and in good shape.

Well written, it is historic and a yet told in way you want to hear the story. Mr. Lawrence does have a way at combining both what you learned in history class (which is boring) and the ability to tell a story (which is exciting). I did have to read this for a history class, but it was so well written I decided to keep it. It is one of my favorite books. If all history writers could write like this than history books would go flying off the shelves. It is strong writing you can almost feel the humidity from the jungle and smell the food.

This is a fairly short book which covers a very very large span of time. I do not have much to compare it with since I almost never read history, but I will say that it does a very nice job of explaining the history of Vietnam as a nation, and spends the right amount of time explaining the French colonial period which precipitated the US entry into the war. I did appreciate the information on decision making for both sides, and I thought the background info on Ho Chi Min as a person was extremely valuable to give shape and color to the appeal which communism had to very large percentage of the population. I do feel that once the Nixon years were reached, the book began to rush past things a bit, and no longer afforded the depth of information on policy making and events which shaped the end of the war as it gave on the origins and escalation of the conflict. All in all still a good primer and I would say more than sufficient to understand how it all started, but it did leave me wanting to know a bit more about the middle and the end.

Mark Atwood Lawrence, executive director of the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, and associate professor of history at The University of Texas at Austin edited this book to provide basic documents from several nations' archives to illustrate the US involvement and disentanglement with Vietnam. I read it for his Yale Alumni College course, "The War that Never Ends" in February 2021. It's not an easy read, but it would be helpful to any reader curious about the steps that led towards the huge commitment of troops and material the US made, and how the US leaders struggled with how to manage and then leave the war. I liked it for its purpose.

Readable

A nice introduction/summary into the Vietnam War (or American War as the Vietnamese call it). It summarises how the global players of the time (US, France, China and Soviet Union) ended up deeply engaged in the region and to what great lengths all parties went - and what tragic developments Vietnam and the neighbouring countries went through.A short, introductory summary to get an overview around the topic.

A complete and comprehensive narrative of the whole Vietnamise history. Focusing different opinions. Interesting comparison of many point of view.

If you want to learn more about the Vietnam war and what led to it, without having to read a 1000 pages book, then this is the right one. The numerous references allow you to deepen your knowledge on a particular issue if you feel like it.

A good starter tome reflecting upon the Vietnam war and its international ramifications, especially with its analysis of the influence of the French defeat upon US policy in the conduct of the war.