Reviews

Synopsis
Provides a comprehensive look at both sides of the Vietnam War through a collection of personal tales and delves into the political and military events in the United States and elsewhere that originally caused the war and the brought it to an end. Reprint. TV tie-in."

Synopsis
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stanley Karnow offers the defintive history of the Vietnam conflict--a monumental narrative that analyzes, clarifies, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of this unpopular, unwinnable war. Photos. 

Synopsis
This definitive history of the Vietnam War, now revised and updated, is also the basis for a documentary that will air on PBS in May. Panoramic, profound, and compassionate, Vietnam: A History was the first book to focus on the people involved on both sides as well as relating the political and military events that unfolded in Vietnam and the decisions made in Washington, Hanoi, and elsewhere. photos, maps.

This monumental narrative clarifies, analyzes, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of the Vietnam war. Free of ideological bias, profound in its understanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with the participants - French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers, and soldiers. Vietnam: A History puts events and decisions into such sharp focus that we come to understand - and make peace with - a convulsive epoch of our recent history.

From The Publisher: 
This monumental narrative clarifies, analyzes, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of the Vietnam war. Free of ideological bias, profound in its understanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with the participants - French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers, and soldiers. Vietnam: A History puts events and decisions into such sharp focus that we come to understand - and make peace with - a convulsive epoch of our recent history.
 
From Jim Miller - Newsweek: 
{Karnow} is no match for the outsize personalities and complex events that, as a historian, he must put into some perspective. Too often his narrativeseems facile, windy, blandly noncommittal. . . . By substituting platitudes for analysis, Karnow makes the Vietnam conflict seem even crazier than it was.Still, as a handful of this book's best scenes remind us, it was a very strange war--a surreal test of will, pitting a courageous and stubborn people against a high-tech Goliath. Karnow recalls the dream that haunted Lyndon Johnson in the midst of his presidency. 'Every night when I fell asleep,' Johnson told his confidant and biographer, Doris Kearns, 'I would see myself tied to the ground in the middle of a long, open space. In the distance I could hear the voices of thousands of people. They were all shouting at me and running toward me: "Coward! Traitor! Weakling!"' Of such dreams a nightmare was made.
 
From Xuan Hy Le - America: 
The whole book flows smoothly--a coherent and convincing story. However,the peculiar selection of events presents a biased view. . . . The corruptionin South Vietnam is repeatedly attacked, while the oppression and utter poverty of North Vietnam are downplayed. . . . Worst of all, the book has very little sympathy for the common people in South Vietnam. . . . As a Vietnamese, I was fascinated by the facts on the American side that Karnow uncovers. The crisp vignettes in clear English will captivate readers. However, Karnow's judgments on the two Vietnamese sides show bias toward the Communists and lack of deeper understanding of the entire Vietnamese people. In many ways the sincereconfession of ignorance by General Taylor still holds, and a balanced understanding of the Vietnam event awaits further treatment.
 
From Douglas Pike - The New York Times Book Review: 
Despite a masterly effort to be comprehensive, Mr. Karnow's account comesout sketchy and abbreviated. Much important history is reduced to a sentenceor two, and slightly less important history is ignored entirely. . . . But, in fact, he has succeeded in doing what he has set out to do--to provide a popular history of the Vietnam War. He studs his account with sprightly details that may or may not contain significance, since he wants to be interesting above all. . . . Mr. Karnow does not claim to have reached a sweeping verdict on the war. Because he has a sharp eye for the illustrative moment and a keen earfor the telling quote, his book is first-rate as a popular contribution to understanding the war. And that is what he meant it to be.
 
From Alfred P. Klausler - The Christian Century: 
As Karnow shows, the Americans either did not know of or overlooked Vietnam's 2,000 years of hostility to the Chinese. Nor did they heed the experience of the French, who for some two centuries had attempted to make Vietnam a crown jewel in their empire. . . . Karnow's narrative, buttressed by personal interviews with participants on both sides and by hitherto unavailable documents, underlines the folly of war. . . . This is a long book, but it is worth the reader's time and money (a paperback edition is promised). Karnow is a brilliant reporter whose 20 years in Southeast Asia have given him insights and sources of information denied to most experts.