Customer Reviews

Lessons of the Vietnam War: A Critical Examination of School Texts and an Interpretive Comparative History Utilizing the Pentagon Papers and Other

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Full disclosure: I was a student of the authors.

Lessons of the Vietnam War is an interesting and provocative examination of American history survey textbooks' accounts of the Vietnam War.

As it was written and published in the 1970s, it's of course out of date. Newer textbooks do a SOMEWHAT better job of honestly recounting U.S. policies, actions, and their impacts.

Nonetheless, the lessons it offers remain unaltered: the selection or omission of certain facts, and the way in which a historian characterizes those facts, are a reflection of the historians' views and those of present-day society.

Textbook histories have further deficiencies, such as the pressures to satisfy nationalist and patriotic fervor. Censorship -- sometimes self-imposed, sometimes market-driven -- make academic textbooks especially weak as valid historical sources.

Those are important lessons for teachers and students that are conveyed in Lessons. The present-day value of this book, then, is to provide a thorough example for the student of history, and the teacher-as-student of history, in the critical examination of secondary (or tertiary) historical sources. As the authors of Lessons use the Pentagon Papers as a touchstone, teachers can encourage their students to use other textbooks, and/or more authoritative sources to try to come closer to the historical truth of any event or period.

Other books that work well in conveying these lessons include A People's History of the United States; Lies My Teacher Told Me; and After the Fact: the Art of Historical Detection.

Out of print; available used.