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Product Description
Comprehensive yet concise, America’s Longest War provides a complete and balanced history of the Vietnam War. It is not mainly a military history, but seeks to integrate military, diplomatic, and political factors in order to clarify America’s involvement and ultimate failure in Vietnam. While it focuses on the American side of the equation, it provides sufficient consideration of the Vietnamese side to make the events comprehensible.
From the Publisher
Widely praised for being a brief, clear and unbiased text.
The third edition of AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR marks a significant revision. This edition seeks to update the history of US involvement in Vietnam.
New research throughout - including information retrieved from recently opened records on the war.
Illustration program has been significantly revised.
The last chapter, "The Post-War and the Legacy of Vietnam", has been substantially rewritten to take into account the dramatic changes of the past decade, analyze the influence that Vietnam continues to excerpt on Americans, and explain the persistence of conflict on the US and Vietnam.
Places the Vietnam War in historical perspective.
Most detailed coverage between the period of 1963-1973, the decade of heaviest American involvement on Vietnam. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The third edition of AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR marks a significant revision. This edition seeks to update the history of US involvement in Vietnam.
New research throughout - including information retrieved from recently opened records on the war.
Illustration program has been significantly revised.
The last chapter, "The Post-War and the Legacy of Vietnam", has been substantially rewritten to take into account the dramatic changes of the past decade, analyze the influence that Vietnam continues to excerpt on Americans, and explain the persistence of conflict on the US and Vietnam.
Places the Vietnam War in historical perspective.
Most detailed coverage between the period of 1963-1973, the decade of heaviest American involvement on Vietnam. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Originally coming out in 1979, this, by my reckoning, is the fourth print of a definitive work which tracks successive American administrations between 1950 - 1975 in thier attempts near and failures in dealing with the issue of the civil war between North and South Vietnam.
George C Herring concentrates his book on the plans and reaction of the various administrations; this approach makes for absorbing reading. Although he covers the events talking place in Vietnam, he swiftly takes the reader back to the Whitehouse to record the response. So although there are no heroes and Herring does not make excuses for anyone, American policy does become clearer; in fact in the broad sweep of history it would seem one facet Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had in common; a wish not to become involved in Vietnam while at the same time endeavouring to impose American policy upon that land; a common historical tragedy, the only difference being the sheer scale.
The style is clear, the facts easy to follow, and the writer's conclusion straight to the point.
Recommended to anyone with an interest in the Vietnam Wars, and also those studying the history of American foreign policy
George C Herring concentrates his book on the plans and reaction of the various administrations; this approach makes for absorbing reading. Although he covers the events talking place in Vietnam, he swiftly takes the reader back to the Whitehouse to record the response. So although there are no heroes and Herring does not make excuses for anyone, American policy does become clearer; in fact in the broad sweep of history it would seem one facet Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had in common; a wish not to become involved in Vietnam while at the same time endeavouring to impose American policy upon that land; a common historical tragedy, the only difference being the sheer scale.
The style is clear, the facts easy to follow, and the writer's conclusion straight to the point.
Recommended to anyone with an interest in the Vietnam Wars, and also those studying the history of American foreign policy
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
16 reviews
69 of 75 people found the following review helpful
Herring focuses on diplomacy
26 Jan 2001
Format:Paperback
Unlike most Vitenam books, America's Longest War chooses to examine the diplomacy element of the war instead of the typical military aspects of the conflict. I was assigned this as a textbook in my Vietnam War class in college and was surprised by the lack of military coverage in it. About two chapters into ALW, I realized that Herring was concentrating on what happened behind closed doors during the war and then it became more easy to understand. Herring also introduces the reader to the movers and shakers of the war and their reasoning behind their decisions. He also starts back with Truman's administration in dealing with French Indo-China and you get the story from the very beginning. Other books typically gloss over Truman and Ike and like to start in LBJ's administration.
Herring also informs the reader that contrary to the current popular opinion, JFK was NOT going to get out of Vietnam because he chose to let the aggressive Henry Cabot Lodge make key decisions in escalating the United States' involvement in South Vietnam. The reader begins to understand that the US lost the war in the diplomatic and political theaters and not on the battlefield. After all, the US military's job was to keep communists from taking over South Vietnam and while US troops were deployed in the country, that objective never happened.
I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in the Vietnam conflict. Although there is no coverage on military engagements, troop life, or popular battles like Khe Sanh and Dienbienphu, this book will give the reader answers on why we were there and who was making the decisions on what we did in Southeast Asia.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Read the First Edition. Good, but needed North POV
31 July 2000
Format:Paperback
I read the first edition of this book (published 1979). This is an excellent introduction into the Vietnam War. The book does focus on the politics and policies of the United States rather than more palatable topics such as the human stories of the war. The book gives a firm background into the years preceding American involvment in Vietnam. The first edition needed the perspective of communist sources to make it a more well rounded work, but of course at the time that was near impossible. A good book for anyone interested in a general history of the Vietnam war.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A Great Account of American Grand Strategy in Vietnam
4 Feb 2007
Format:Paperback
Like many people here, I read this book for a college class concerned with providing an explanation of the numerous questions that arise whenever one ponders America in Vietnam, like why it was there, and why it lost. Any student or curious reader should find this work a great tool for this task.
The book is fairly short, numbering less than 400 pages. By that restraint alone, no reader should expect a thorough, voluminous exposition on every aspect of the war akin to Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, or a textbook for that matter. It's a piece on political history with a general thesis, numerous recurring themes, and plenty of information to back everything up.
The thesis is that the containment strategy America adopted around the Korean War, and its perceiving Vietnam as a strategic door to all of Southeast Asia, prevented each successive president from leaving Vietnam to the wolves and forced each one to progressively raise American stakes n the region. Numerous other variables--some consistent to all presidencies, like fear of facing the same political bloodletting as Truman got over "losing" China in 1949; some specific to the president, like JFK's need to take a stand somewhere after negotiating on Laos, and after the Berlin wall was erected--accompanied this grand one, but the central theme of this book draws a vivid picture of proud Cold Warriors refusing to back down and unwilling to commit entirely, hoping to bluff out an enemy who had already gone all in.
Of course, because it is a work with a point to prove rather than a huge collection of unfiltered facts, the reader must be wary of buying into Herring's perspective without private review of his logic. That's true for every book of this sort, however, and for what it's worth, Herring makes a very convincing case.
On the technical side of things, this book could have done more to centralize its presentation of thematic events. Since the author shifts between historical narrative and analysis, the latter could have summaries and reminders of recurring concepts on the margins. As it is, the reader has to discover themes like "US arrogance" or "governmental deception" by himself and note their recurrence without any assistance from Herring. Doing this isn't the standard for most books, though (the only one I can think off that does this is Landmark Thucydides), I can't criticize the book for not following up on these suggestions.
The book is fairly short, numbering less than 400 pages. By that restraint alone, no reader should expect a thorough, voluminous exposition on every aspect of the war akin to Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, or a textbook for that matter. It's a piece on political history with a general thesis, numerous recurring themes, and plenty of information to back everything up.
The thesis is that the containment strategy America adopted around the Korean War, and its perceiving Vietnam as a strategic door to all of Southeast Asia, prevented each successive president from leaving Vietnam to the wolves and forced each one to progressively raise American stakes n the region. Numerous other variables--some consistent to all presidencies, like fear of facing the same political bloodletting as Truman got over "losing" China in 1949; some specific to the president, like JFK's need to take a stand somewhere after negotiating on Laos, and after the Berlin wall was erected--accompanied this grand one, but the central theme of this book draws a vivid picture of proud Cold Warriors refusing to back down and unwilling to commit entirely, hoping to bluff out an enemy who had already gone all in.
Of course, because it is a work with a point to prove rather than a huge collection of unfiltered facts, the reader must be wary of buying into Herring's perspective without private review of his logic. That's true for every book of this sort, however, and for what it's worth, Herring makes a very convincing case.
On the technical side of things, this book could have done more to centralize its presentation of thematic events. Since the author shifts between historical narrative and analysis, the latter could have summaries and reminders of recurring concepts on the margins. As it is, the reader has to discover themes like "US arrogance" or "governmental deception" by himself and note their recurrence without any assistance from Herring. Doing this isn't the standard for most books, though (the only one I can think off that does this is Landmark Thucydides), I can't criticize the book for not following up on these suggestions.
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