Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 - by Marilyn Young (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"This is the history of the war in Vietnam we have been waiting for. This is a marvelous achievement--meticulously documented, excitingly narrated, written with grace, wit, and passion."- Howard Zinn

"This terrible history is told with such clarity and passion, detail, intelligence it's hard to stop reading. The tension in the writing keeps your sadness in some kind of check as you read about opportunities for peace lost again and again, and think of today's newspapers and how we are, with some differences, modification, and more firepower, once again half the world away confusing credibility with honor." - Grace Paley

In this remarkably researched account of the American and Vietnamese political and diplomatic sides of the Vietnam War, Marilyn Young offers some correctives to pervasive myths that surround the conflicts leading up to the first clashes, pertaining to popular terms found in American rhetoric when discussing "the enemy," and the impact of American interference in foreign affairs.

From the Back Cover

This book is a work of synthesis that could not have been attempted without the extraordinary work of scholars and writers on both the history of American war and the history of the Vietnam war of resistance.

Review Quotes

"A first-rate synthesis of the vast literature on the Vietnam War which effectively interweaves U.S. involvement in Indochina with relevant developments on the American domestic front in a way that makes both more understandable." -- George McT. Kahin, Cornell University

"Eloquent . . . A concise and effective exposition of the events of the war, and a cogent analysis of the motives underlying America's decision to make war against Vietnam.'" -- Kirkus Reviews

"It is a marvelously wide-ranging and lively synthesis--unmatched in its striking juxtaposition of the Vietnamese revolution with American (old War policy and ideology and in its sensitivity to the human dimensions of the conflict on both sides. This engaged and engaging study deserves a place at the top of everyone's Vietnam reading list." -- Michael H. Hunt, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"This is the history of the war in Vietnam we have been waiting for. This is a marvelous achievement--meticulously documented, excitingly narrated, written with grace, wit, and passion." -- Howard Zinn

"This story, 'The Vietnam Wars, ' this terrible history is told with such clarity and passion, detail, intelligence it's hard to stop reading. The tension in the writing keeps your sadness in some kind of check as you read about opportunities for peace lost again and again, and think of today's newspapers and how we are, with some differences, modification, and more firepower, once again half the world away confusing credibility with honor." -- Grace Paley