Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience [Paperback]

Gabriel Kolko (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1994

Kolko's groundbreaking and widely cited study of the Vietnam War, with a new postscript by the author.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Opening with an account of the rise of Vietnamese communism and ending with the fall of Saigon, this encompassing study reveals how "one side's human, ideological, and organizational resources led it to victory under conditions of vast material inferiority." Kolko, a historian who now teaches in Canada, examines in depth issues such as land reform, the social system in South Vietnam, the ideological foundations of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the economic impact of the war on the United States. He contends that our policymakers ("with certain reservations and lapses") never considered an outright military victory possible, and he pointedly draws a connection between the Washington-Saigon alliance and the "current dilemma of the U.S.'s relationship to all of its Third World clients, on which it has become fatally dependent as instruments for applying its foreign policy." A notable aspect of the book is the author's admiration for the flexibility and inventiveness of the North Vietnamese, contrasted with his disdain for the doggedly unrealistic countermeasures of the Americans and South Vietnamese. January 20
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this detailed and provocative study, Kolko analyzes the U.S.-Vietnamese war on two levels: first, as a protracted collision between two dynamic and changing social systems; and second, as a crisis in the U.S. attempt to extend its social and political order. Viewing the war as a violent social and political process, Kolko examines the several structural forces that shaped the behavior of the Vietnamese Communist revolutionaries, U.S. policymakers, and America's Saigon clients. He sees their conflict as a three-sided struggle, played out within a highly complex international arena and against the unexpected volatility of U.S. domestic politics. Essentially unconcerned with individuals, Kolko concentrates on the inherent dilemmas and contradictions that faced different collective actors, and his approach makes for stiff and stilted reading. Yet it is worth the effort, for this work should stand as the most sophisticated Marxist explication of the war and its significance for some time to come. Charles DeBenedetti, History Dept., Univ. of Toledo, Ohio
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 688 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (October 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565842189
• ISBN-13: 978-1565842182
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #791,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a compelling and chilling account, June 21, 2000

By 

egalitarian ethos - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (Paperback)

In "Anatomy of a War" author Gabriel Kolko has done an impeccable job of revealing the truth behind America's involvement in Indochina. Kolko lucidly illustrates how by 1948 the US has recognized that the Viet Minh, the anti-French resistance led by Ho Chi Minh, was not only the national movement of Vietnam, but that the Viet Minh favored independent development and ignored the interests of foreign investors and was therefor deemed "the enemy" by US policy planners.

Kolko adroitly elucidates how the US blocked all attempts at political settlement of the conflict, installed a Latin American-style terror state in South Vietnam, and blocked free, democratic elections in Vietnam because it was obvious the Viet Minh was going to win. "Anatomy of a War" illustrates how American war planners escalated the attack against South Vietnam from massive state terror to outright aggression and expanded the war to all of Indochina. A compelling and chilling account of one America's more depraved acts this century.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the other side, April 14, 2000

By 

John Miller (Kihei, Hi USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (Paperback)

Kolko writes from the point of view of the Vietnamese, the real victims and the real heroes of the Indochina anticolonial wars. This is a perspective unavailable in any other volume. It is an excellent antidote for the rampant revisionism now afoot regarding this disgraceful episode in our history.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best history of VIetnam War, April 16, 2002

By 

Andy Barenberg "Andy b." (KC, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (Paperback)

Another brillant work of Scholorship by Kolko. His material on N. Vietnam motivation is particulary interesting