Customer Reviews

The Vietnam War 1956-1975

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Though I lived through the Vietnam era, I found following the fighting then very difficult, especially as regards Laos and Cambodia. After reading this book, I feel I now have a clear outline of the military aspects and strategies of the war. (Though there is some discussion of the homefront, that doesn't dominate.) I was wanting to read a dispassionate look at the war in its military aspects, and this book delivered, in my opinion. If you're looking for a brief introduction to the war, I highly recommend this book. The text is easy to follow, and there are many useful maps and photographs.

This book is written in a clear style, with plenty of maps and pictures. It gives a concise overview of the Vitenam War in all of its major aspects. It doesn't limit itself to the war's military operations, but delves into the broader issues.

For example, the book examines the causes and development of the anti-war movement in the US and its relationship with the civil-rights movement. The book also surveys the consequences of the Vietnam War until the present, both in SE Asia and in the US.

This is a clear and concise book, and I highly recommend it. Being only 25 years old and not an American citizen, I had only a very sketchy knowledge of the Vietnam War. This book served as a very nice introduction.

This is a excellent concise history of the worse 'war' in the 20th century. It covers the transition of powers from various peoples such as Chinese, French, Japanese, and various factions of Vietnamese. For novice, this will get you up to speed and even comments on the current Iraq 'war'. Two chapters are personal commentaries from a veteran and a conscientious objector. The latter seem not to flow with the book and could be left for larger works.

Concise, to the point, balanced, well written, with all the main facts chronologically, different points of views and different theatres (Vietnam/America) of the conflict.

Excelent maps and sufficient pictures.

The book is one of the best (or even the best) of the Essential Histories Series by Osprey.

It is just the short and precise military history of the entire conflict that I wanted to read.

Also: a neat and well-organised book.

The book is a fairly easy read and a good addition to Osprey's Essential Histories collection. It is well organized and mostly follows a chronological order. Although the battle coverage is somewhat superficial, the author does give sufficient attention to some of the main conflicts. Also, this coverage is given from both sides. For example, the author discusses U.S. offensive action at the battles of the Ia Drang Valley, Tet, and the secret campaign into Cambodia. He also discusses the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive and the final Ho Chi Minh Campaign.

This book, however, does more than just cover the war. The author adds value to the story by placing it in context with the counter culture and Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. In order for anyone to understand why America lost the Vietnam War, they must understand the domestic factors affecting U.S. policy. One chapter brings home this point by focusing on a specific conscientious objector.

Finally, the book provides unique insight into the collapse of South Vietnam by looking at economic factors. Most books will talk about a corrupt and ineffective government as a leading cause for their defeat. The author shows true brilliance by showing that nothing is ever quite that simple. He discusses how the loss of US monetary aid caused massive inflation. When the United States withdrew its forces, it left South Vietnam with a technologically superior and battle tested, one million man military. Unfortunately, U.S. economic policy ensured that the South Vietnamese Government would not be able to maintain this army. The loss of US aid meant that this formidable fighting force was short of such essentials as fuel and ammunition.

Because the book is a quick overview of the conflict, it cannot cover everything. For example, it does not discuss the fact that the U.S. broke its promise to defend South Vietnam as a condition of the Paris Peace Accord. Nevertheless, it does cover the main events of the war and place them in the context of the times. The information on the Civil Rights movement and US economic policy adds true value to this book. The author is able to show that despite the fact that the US won every major battle and then left behind a vastly superior ARVN military, the war was lost due to political and economic factors. In essence, the U.S. was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The reader can only hope that we do not repeat ourselves in the ongoing war on terror.

I bought this book several years ago while I was studying the Vietnam War in high school. Needless to say, it is extremely informative and offers different perspectives on the war, just like the other Essential Histories.

I've even seen this book used in graduate courses at Georgetown University in DC for Security Studies. It remains an intro, but an extremely good one.

The book was serviceable in terms of the type, amount, and quality of information that I was seeking - a quick overview of the major events surrounding the Vietnam War.

HOWEVER - the "quick" overview was repeatedly marred by the unwillingness of either the author or the publisher's proofreaders to use commas. Commas are left out of practically any introductory sentence clause that they think they can get away with. I had heard from a literature instructor that commas can be considered "optional" if a clause has fewer than 5 words, or some "rule" like that.

After suffering through the reading of this book, I must now vehemently disagree with whoever promotes this new notion of sparse comma use. Even though it is eventually possible to make sense of the sentences, by an analysis of (and elimination of) word clusterings that don't make sense, *this makes the reading process needlessly slow and laborious* because there are many combinations of words that the mind is prone to consider as potential clauses in these types of sentences, and a traditional use of commas would have allowed readers to quickly and efficiently eliminate most of those possibilities and to steer the attention where the author had intended, with a minimum of parsing.

In this book, however (and this problem grew worse as the book went on), there are many sentences that make for annoying reading because what should have been an easy-to-relate concept instead offers numerous distractions as one has to take the extra time to parse a nearly punctuation-free sentence. Granted, the sentences are comprehensible, but why shouldn't the author and publisher do some of that interpretive work for us, by using punctuation in the manner that has now been traditional for a couple of centuries of non-fiction writing? (Some of the writing here is actually clunky, and thus wouldn't even benefit from added punctuation unless it is re-written. However, a dearth of punctuation certainly makes this problem much worse!)

I need to cite some examples for anyone to take my review seriously, so here are a few from selected pages:

Pages 72-73:

"At first US support for the Laotian government took the form of military aid and advisors, but as war loomed in Vietnam the situation changed dramatically, for the North Vietnamese intervened in Laotian affairs, partly to secure the Ho Chi Minh trail."

"The daring Hmong tribesmen, supplied by the CIA, operated Air America and augmented by Thai troops, also performed several other duties including surveillance of the Ho Chi Minh trail and secret forays into North Vietnam itself." [sic]

Page 87-88:

"Economically Vietnam suffered from a botched attempt at agricultural collectivization, continued war and isolation from the west."

"In an effort to exact a measure of revenge in February 1979 Chinese forces invaded the northern provinces of Vietnam - only leaving after having taught the Vietnamese a sufficient 'lesson.'"

Page 92:

"In both nations universities and centers of study dedicate themselves to understanding the culture and history of their ex enemy." [sic]

There are also some misspellings ("lynchpin," "adn" on pgs. 36 and 91) and some unexplained date discrepancies that required me to check other sources to verify or make chronological sense of the information being presented. (Page 57 - was the ceasefire on January 8 or 27? Page 24 - the "final stage" of the Tet Offensive plan is stated as a siege that is dated 10 days before Tet was stated as beginning. Page 88 - a statement that the Vietnamese would remain in Cambodia for 20 years after they had gained control of it, contradicted in the very next paragraph by the statement that the Vietnamese troops withdrew in 1988.)

This product needs some serious re-editing.

If one was prone to purchase Cliff Notes in college to avoid reading the whole book, then this book may have been written for you. It lacks detail and covers a purported 19-year history in 96 pages (which is more like 86). I am still reading the book, but am very disappointed in its overall content and depth. It appears to be slanted towards a one-sided view from the author's perspective and opinions. Parts are poorly written and several misspellings. If you are not of the Vietnam generation and want to get a full understanding of the Vietnam era, then I recommend that your money be spent on a more thoroughly written history. However, it is published on quality paper, and the photos and maps are of excellent quality.