Against the Vietnam War - by Mary Susannah Robbins (Paperback)

About the Book

The protest movement in opposition to the Vietnam War was a complex amalgam of political, social, economic, and cultural motivations, factors, and events. Against the Vietnam War brings together the different facets of that movement and its various shades of opinion. Here the ...

Book Synopsis

The protest movement in opposition to the Vietnam War was a complex amalgam of political, social, economic, and cultural motivations, factors, and events. Against the Vietnam War brings together the different facets of that movement and its various shades of opinion. Here the participants themselves offer statements and reflections on their activism, the era, and the consequences of a war that spanned three decades and changed the United States of America. The keynote is on individual experience in a time when almost every event had national and international significance.

Review Quotes

In its balance between famous and grassroots activists, Against the War offers a wealth of valuable insights into why Americans opposed the Vietnam War and how their opposition took form--and colored their lives forever.

Invaluable for reminding readers of the complexity within the antiwar movement. Robbins has composed an anthology with remarkable diversity in points of view, with due attention to resistance to the Vietnam War within the military and by veterans, and with respect for the political capacities of everyday citizens.

There is no other book quite like this one and its importance has only grown over the years. We need to listen to these voices for they mirror a huge number of American lives. One is grateful for this sorrowful and wonderful record.

This is an outstanding collection of writings by anti-Vietnam war activists that gives a vivid sense of the range of principles and passions that motivated one of the largest and most influential social movements in American history. We hear from scholars and soldiers, senators and students, clergy, journalists, conscientious objectors, grassroots organizers and national mobilizers, some well-known and others from the rank-and-file of the movement. The result is a powerful compilation that should find a place on the reading lists for many courses on the Vietnam War, peace and justice, or the United States in the 1960s.

About the Author

Mary Susannah Robbins, Ph.D., has taught English literature at Vassar College and runs her own editorial services company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poems, stories, and prints have appeared in various magazines including Ploughshares and Confrontation, and she is the editor of the forthcoming book Peace Not Terror: Leading Thinkers Show the Way Out of Perpetual War.