Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War [Hardcover]

Harry G. Summers (Author), Stanley Karnow (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 1995

With more than one hundred four-color maps supplemented by photographs and reconstructions, the Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War provides the first major visualization of that war as well as a penetrating and comprehensive analysis of the conflict based on both U.S. and Vietnamese postwar accounts. The atlas begins with an overview of the foundations of the Vietnamese nation-state, including its almost two-thousand-year struggle to break free from Chinese domination and its century-long fight to gain its independence from French colonial rule, and sets the 1954 partition of the country and the subsequent American involvement there in their cold war context. U.S. involvement is examined in depth to provide an understanding of why America intervened and why, despite its battlefield successes, it ultimately failed to obtain its political objective: a free and independent South Vietnam. Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr., examines the many anomalies of the war, including why the United States bought the Communist propaganda line that relations between China and Vietnam were as "the lips to the teeth," when Vietnam actually felt betrayed by its Chinese "ally." Unlike most U.S. writings on the war, which end with the 1968 Tet Offensive - a failing analogous to ending the study of World War II with Stalingrad or Guadalcanal - Summers' essay draws on North Vietnamese sources to explode the notion that the war was an indigenous South Vietnamese uprising. He details the destruction of the Viet Cong guerrillas in the Tet Offensive and tells how the war was primarily a conventional one waged by the regular armed forces of North Vietnam during the last seven years. The atlas examines the curious effect of the U.S. antiwar movement, the "Vietnamization" of the war, the Americans' cynical abandonment of their Asian ally, and the final North Vietnamese multi-division blitzkrieg that led to the fall of Saigon in 1975, as well as Robert McNamara's self-serving apologia that the war was militarily unwinnable from the onset. Given the strong emotion involved, many of the Vietname generation may continue to be wedded to their prejudices. But it has been said that those who came of age after the war know there is a skeleton in the family closet and now want to be let in on the secret. An examination of the forensic evidence, the Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War is the closest we have yet come to a thorough autopsy of that debacle.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (November 2, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395722233
• ISBN-13: 978-0395722237
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,054,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Problems with the Maps, May 27, 2000

By 

Edwin E. Moise (Clemson, South Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War (Hardcover)

Too many things are shown in the wrong places on the maps.

The most hilarious example is on page 97. Laos had two capital cities: the royal capital of Luang Prabang, where the (purely ceremonial) king lived, and the administrative capital of Vientiane, where there was an actual government. On this map, Luang Prabang has been moved across the border into North Vietnam (a very strange place for the royal capital of Laos), while Vientiane has been moved across the other border into Thailand. The same map also has the town of Vinh, in North Vietnam, shifted westward from its actual location near the coast; it appears on this map to be closer to the Laotian border than to the sea.

Flip one page back to look at the map on page 95, which shows the Tonkin Gulf Incidents and the U.S. air strikes of August 5, 1964. This map has Vinh in the right place, but Hanoi has been mislocated; it is shown as being southwest of Haipong (Hanoi is actually northwest of Haiphong). More important, the map shows Hon Gai, one of the targets of the U.S. air strikes, as being right next to the Chinese border. Hon Gai is actually well to the southwest of the location shown; if it had been close to the Chinese border, Lyndon Johnson would not have approved the strike against it in this operation. The location shown for the aircraft carrier Constellation, which launched the planes for the strike against Hon Gai, is also seriously inaccurate.

A small inset map on page 95 shows the tracks of the two U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy, on the night of August 4, 1964, and the tracks of objects that appeared on their radar, believed to be torpedo boats attacking them. The track shown for the supposed torpedo boat designated V2 bears no resemblance to any track that shows in the records of the destroyers, and the track shown for V1 does not bear a close resemblance to any track that shows in the records of the destroyers.

I have not found so many errors in other maps in this atlas, but I have found more than I liked. The one thing an atlas is absolutely supposed to do is show things in the correct locations on the maps.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, December 8, 1998

By 

D. C. Carrad "augustabookman" (Augusta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War (Hardcover)

Adds a new dimension sorely lacking in other good books about Vietnam. Good historical coverage all the way back to pre-history, sharp clear graphics and comprehensive coverage. I was there in 1968-69 and think this book is a valuable addition to anyone's Vietnam collection -- or a fine place to start if you are just learning about this country and its wars. Kudos to Colonel Summers, the author, for producing such a fine atlas.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A visual diary of the War., January 13, 2002

By 

alainviet "alainviet" (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War (Hardcover)

This is a beautifully illustrated book with battlefield plans of the Vietnam Wars and details of all the troop movements. It places the reader right at the center of the war zone. The text on the left handside details the events involved at the time while maps are drawn on the right handside.

The texts are concised, focused and give the reader a clear and broad picture of the war.