Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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

In my previous review I erred in thinking there were no notes for the Postscript. A minute after sending off that review, I found out that the notes for the Postscript were actually placed in front of the notes for all the chapters preceding the Postscript. What a confusing setup! On another thread, is there any way to obtain the author's assessment of the situation in Viet Nam up to the present time, i.e. August 1998?

Found the book in the used section, was quite surprised at the unremitting whitewash of anti-RVN forces, but at least the dated Marxist terminology was quite entertaining to parse. Uncountable amount of opinion stated as fact, with very thin references. If you're looking for a black & white account of the conflict, this one's pretty good.