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Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict Paperback – July 16, 2002

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 87 ratings

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Michael Lind casts new light on one of the most contentious episodes in American history in this controversial bestseller.

In this groundgreaking reinterpretation of America's most disatrous and controversial war, Michael Lind demolishes enduring myths and put the Vietnam War in its proper context—as part of the global conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lind reveals the deep cultural divisions within the United States that made the Cold War consensus so fragile and explains how and why American public support for the war in Indochina declined. Even more stunning is his provacative argument that the United States failed in Vietnam because the military establishment did not adapt to the demands of what before 1968 had been largely a guerrilla war.

In an era when the United States so often finds itself embroiled in prolonged and difficult conflicts, Lind offers a sobering cautionary tale to Ameicans of all political viewpoints.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Dan Rather CBS News Michael Lind is one of the smartest and most gifted writers I know of. He is also one of the bravest, unafraid to tackle the most controversial subjects. Now he turns his formidable attentions to the Vietnam War, and the results will dazzle you. More importantly, this book will make you think. Even if, ultimately, you don't agree with every single provocative analysis Michael Lind provides, I guarantee you will be challenged to reassess and reinvigorate every idea you have received, stockpiled, and taken for granted for three decades. "Vietnam: The Necessary War" is a necessary book -- for anyone who really wants to understand one of the most difficult periods in our history.

Fareed Zakaria managing editor, "Foreign Affairs" A quarter century after its bitter end, Vietnam remains America's most controversial war and Michael Lind's book is sure to set off new sparks about it. Looking at the war from the heights of grand strategy and the inner reaches of domestic politics, Lind makes a fresh, highly intelligent, and passionate case for rethinking the conventional wisdom. Agree with it or not, it is compelling reading.

John Patrick Diggins Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York Graduate Center Most Americans prefer to forget the Vietnam War. Lind compels us to remember it in all its complexity and tragedy and to consider military and diplomatic possibilities that almost no other author or statesman has though of raising. Moving through the pages of this richly provocative book is an agitated originality.

About the Author

Michael Lind is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the Washington editor of Harper's Magazine. He is also the author of five previous books, including The Next American Nation and Up from Conservatism. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and other publications. He holds a master's degree in international relations from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Texas. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; Reprint edition (July 16, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 314 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0684870274
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0684870274
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 87 ratings

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Michael Lind
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Michael Lind is the author of more than a dozen books about U.S. political and economic history, politics and foreign policy. He has explained and defended the tradition of American democratic nationalism in The Next American Nation (1995), Hamilton's Republic (1997), What Lincoln Believed (2005), The American Way of Strategy (2006), and Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (2012). His most recent book is The New Class War: How to Save Democracy from The Managerial Elite (2020).

Lind's works of fiction and poetry include The Alamo (1997), named by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as one of hte best books of the year, and Bluebonnet Girl (2003), illustrated by Kate Kiesler, an Oppenheimer Toy Portfolio Gold Book Award winner.

Educated at the University of Texas and Yale University, Lind is a columnist for Tablet and a contributor to American Affairs, American Compass and Project Syndicate. He has been an editor or staff writer at Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The New Republic, the National Interest, co-founder of New America, and Assistant to the Director of the U.S. State Department's Center for Foreign Affairs. He has taught at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Texas.

A fifth generation Texan, Michael Lind lives in his home town of Austin, Texas, where he is Professor of Practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs of the University of Texas at Austin.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
87 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2009
Lind is a provocative, engaging, and also infuriating writer. In this book on the American experience in Vietnam, he offers up a new take strategy and the balance of power in the Cold War that is extremely different. The United States had to fight in Vietnam and lose (although winning would have been preferable) to prove that its word had meaning and that the allies could count on their American friends. "It was necessary for the United States to escalate the war in the mid-1960s in order to defend the credibility of the United States as a superpower, but it was necessary for United States to forfeit the war after 1968, in order to preserve the American domestic political consensus in favor of the Cold War on other fronts. Indochina was worth a war but only a limited war--and not the limited war that the United States actually fought" (p. xv).

At times the book reads like it was designed for domestic political consumption and winning points on one of the cable talk shows that are broadcast from various parts of the Washington, D.C. area. It is far more sophisticated than what anyone will find on those shows, though.

Lind basically calls it like he sees it and manages to rankle almost anyone who has a stake in American public life: Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, the religious, the military, the antiwar movement and pacifists, the American intellectual community, and the civil rights movement to name just a few. Those few groups that do not get offended in some form from this book are probably not all that important in the first place. In the process, he punctures many myths. Chapter three on the failure of the U.S. military in Vietnam--rejecting the idea popular among veterans that the politicians kept them from winning the war--alone is worth the price of the book. He also goes after the antiwar movement and argues in convincing fashion that it became the witting pawn of the North Vietnamese and that many of the leaders crossed the line between dissent and disloyalty. The chapter on American politics and culture is interesting, but he makes the United States far more historical conscious than is actually the case. It is also difficult to take serious an argument that claims Wisconsin and Oregon are part of New England. Few people will buy all his arguments, but he will make you stop and think a bit.
22 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2013
Reviews of Soviet, Chinese and Vietnamese documents (with bibliography and citations) provided insight into what our enemies thought.
Some mistakes were distracting, such as noting John McCain as an Air Force pilot (he was Navy) and discussion of 1991 Persian Gulf War with false assumptions.
The review of the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Communist takeover of China and other conflicts within the context of Cold War and global hegemony was refreshing in a new perspective on a painful conflict.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2007
Michael Lind has to be either the leading American intellectual alive or, a close competitor for that honor. With this lucid book, I was more than persuaded - indeed swept - into giving credence to Lind's arguments about the importance of the American involvement in Vietnam. Mr Lind draws from many sources in order to bolster his artfully weaved thesis. This book has history, analysis, and even some conjectures that are highly plausible. I am sure this book will become the standard against which similar books will be compared. In case that you are curious, here is Lind's verdict: "The Vietnam War was a just, constitutional and necessary proxy war in the Third World War that was waged by methods that were often counterproductive and sometimes arguably immoral. The war had to be fought in order to preserve the military and diplomatic credibility of the United States in the Cold War, ...."
11 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2020
This book was a refreshing conservative approach to the rationale attached to the US involvement with the War in Vietnam.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2002
Lee Kuan Yew (the George Washington of Singapore and one of Asia's senior statesmen) has stated over and over again that America's involvement in Vietnam was a noble cause. So did Ronald Reagan. So does the author, and he documents why. Nice to see the truth told for a change. I spent a year there (June 1968 to June 1969) and agree 100% with the author's very persuasive history and logic.
46 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2010
Interesting book. If you think that there was a Soviet-run hegemonic communist world wide movement, you will like the book. If you think this is a huge over simplification, you will find the book absurd. He does seem to gloss over any contradictory information that may weaken his thesis, but it will definitely make you think.
10 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2013
Much food for thought bolstered by facts and references. Puts a very emotional issue in perspective and offers a lot to think about.
3 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2017
Arrived on time and in good condition. I may disagree with some of Lind's points, but he still makes a compelling argument.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Kieran
5.0 out of 5 stars great for arguments both for war and against it
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 27, 2018
was a superb book, great for arguments both for war and against it
One person found this helpful
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Lynton S Bennett
5.0 out of 5 stars Sensible third way
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 17, 2013
Good book Linda argument certainly gives the loony left something to think about does justice to America,s fifty six thousand war dead
One person found this helpful
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