Posted on 03/29/2019 7:07:17 AM PDT by ObozoMustGo2012
In light of Vietnam War Vets' Day, I am looking for a good book on the overall history of the Vietnam War.
I'm not looking for something written based on one author's experience or perspective... and CERTAINLY not by any left wing anti-war liberal ex-hippie.
Again, something that captures the overall history... the events preceding the war, the war itself, and the resulting aftermath.
Easy to read, not lengthy with unnecessary descriptions.
So... any recommendations based on my limiting criteria? :-)
Thanks!!
I’d have to dig deep...anything that
has to do with media of the era can be crossed of your list...example Cronkite.
You may consider military sites...
Just watch John Wayne’s movie “The Green Berets”. A little corny by today’s standards, but there is no other movie that sums it up better.
Vietnam: A History, by Stanley Karnow.
VIETNAM: A HISTORY. THE FIRST COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF VIETNAM AT WAR by Stanley Karnow
Unrelated but Richards Evans trilogy of Germany and WWII is the most comprehensive series I’ve ever read. In-depth doesn’t accurately describe it.
I remember watching this in 1983 and thought it was very good, especially regarding the history before the U.S. entered the war. I thought it was far superior to Ken Burn's 2018 PBS mini-series.
"Vietnam: A Television History" (1983) is a 13-part American documentary and television mini-series about the Vietnam War (1955-1975) from the perspective of the United States. It was produced for public television by WGBH-TV in Boston, and it was originally broadcast on PBS between October 4 and December 20, 1983.
Later, it was rebroadcast—–as part of the PBS series American Experience—from May 26 to July 28, 1997. However, only 11 of the 13 original episodes were rebroadcast. Episodes 2 and 13 were dropped.
It was the most successful documentary produced by PBS up to the time of initial broadcast. Nearly 9% of American households tuned in to watch the initial episode, and an average of 9.7 million viewers watched each of the 13 episodes. A rebroadcast in the summer of 1984 garnered roughly a 4% share in the five largest U.S. television markets.
The origins of the series reach back to 1977 when filmmaker Richard Ellison and foreign correspondent Stanley Karnow discussed the project. The latter had been a journalist in Paris during the 1950s and a reporter in French Indochina since 1959. Karnow was Chief Correspondent in the series and his tie-in book, Vietnam: A History (1983), became a best-seller.
When PBS elected to rebroadcast Vietnam: A Television History (originally broadcast in 1983) as part of its American Experience series in 1997, a re-edited version some 120 minutes shorter (a total of 660 minutes, as opposed to 780 minutes) was used. this version excluded entirely Episodes 2 ("The First Vietnam War") and 13 ("Legacies") of the original broadcast.
The editing was reportedly undertaken to remove outdated information and to create a more cohesive story for viewers. However, some viewers who remembered the original 13-episode version derogated the changes as "censorship": they believed that they could detect a "corrective" treatment of the material that involved cutting out politically objectionable scenes; an interview of a French colonel discussing the end of the siege at Dien Bien Phu and referring to the Viet Minh as "Red Termites"; an interview of a man recalling a popular expression of that time and place in which the native plantation workers were termed "fertilizer" because so many died and were buried beneath the trees among which they toiled; and material depicting the British decision to rearm defeated Japanese soldiers at the end of World War II to use them against the Vietnamese. No evidence was presented that PBS executives edited the series for political purposes.
Additionally, the use of the shortened 1997 broadcast version for the 2004 DVD release of the series–rather than the entire, original 1983 version–has not been explained.
Historian Max Hastings as a new book out.
It’s titled “Viet Nam, Epic Tragedy 1945-1975.”
I served in the Marines in combat there for 17 months. Everything I've seen about the war has been a cartoon by folks who have an agenda. All of the movies have been crap and the TV documentaries heavily skewed against us.
Hastings is a Brit jerk; he already made is prejudices against our war well known before he came out with this book.
Stanley Karnow (IIIC it’s called the “ten thousand day war”), but if not both Karnow & that one are ok.
He’s a Limey, for sure.
I’ve read several of his previous works and found them excellent.
If you have a minute — five minutes, to be exact — pop over to Youtube and watch Bruce Herschensohn’s piece on Vietnam for PragerU.
Like I said, he has already made his antagonism against our war in Vietnam well known.
Propaganda- even when “well written” is still propaganda.
Would you agree that “our war” was a continuation of the French war ?
Agree...Watch the video on YouTube or Vimeo...
Then buy his book (used on Amazon for a couple bucks):
https://www.amazon.com/American-Amnesia-Congress-Surrenders-Cambodia/dp/0825306329...
A very readable account of how the Democrat majority House and Senate of the 94th Congress betrayed our South Vietnamese allies and sold out the US military...
Also agree re Stanley Karnow’s Vietbam, A History...
https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473
Have you read Neil Sheehan’s “Bright Shining Lie” ?
No.
When the French lost their colonial war, a vacuum was created. The Soviets and the Chinese openly and vigorously supported the murderous ambitions of Ho Chi Minh with arms, training, and advisors.
Our allies and the critical sea ways around them were at stake.
By the time we did get our own forces involved, the enemy had a massive terror campaign in progress and at least two NVA divisions in the south
We had no choice. It was never about territory or colonies or any affection for French.
Fire in the Lake - Frances Fitzgerald
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