The War Managers (Da Capo Paperback) [Paperback]

Douglas Kinnard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 1991 | Series: Da Capo Paperback

In 1947 Douglas Kinnard sent out an extensive questionnaire to the 173 Army generals who had managed the war in Vietnam. A surprising sixty-seven percent of them completed the questionnaires, with many adding pages of comments. Kinnard then personally interviewed twenty of the respondents and supplemented the data with research from the files of the Army's military history center. The War Managers is the astonishing result of Kinnard's analysis of the responses of these men. Kinnard had focused on such central issues as the quality of both American and Vietnamese troops, the generals' own chains of command, the influence of the media, civilian authority, U.S. objectives, the importance of the "body count," and many others. What emerges from the generals answers, compiled in an absorbing manner in this book, is a uniquely fascinating and penetrating view of the Vietnam War from the perspectives of the U.S. Army generals who commanded there.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dougles Kinnard, a U.S. Army general who was chief of staff of the most important field command in Vienam before his 1970 retirement, is currently professor of strategy at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 21, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306804492
• ISBN-13: 978-0306804496
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Author wins survey battle, but loses book war/ skip this one, October 1, 2001

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brazos49 "brazos49" (Sugar Land, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The War Managers (Da Capo Paperback) (Paperback)

The premise of this book sounded appealing to me: the generals who managed the Vietnam war giving their views on what was done right and what wasn't. And, the author himself was one of those generals. However, in my opinion, this author may have won the battle of getting a broad response to his questionnaire, but he lost the war of delivering a good book presenting an insightful set of conclusions and supporting data.

Here's where I think this author and publisher missed the boat: they designed this book to be more of an academic thesis with a focus on a survey's results and less of an interesting book which took themes from the results and enlarged on those with specific interviews, other supporting data and anecdotes. That might have been a good book. This one really isn't.

Further, the author's data collecting tool, his multiple choice survey, allowed for some fairly close gradations in answers which seemed to blur the results. And, there was no analysis of results sorted by grade of general (1 star input same as 4 star) or what type of command they had. In other words, the author looked for data, the generals were kind enough to mostly reply, and he presented the data. It just wasn't a study or effort that was successful in adding much insight or much of interest to a reader. It's probably a fine book for an Army war college or a West Point course, but not much else.