Table of Contents

Introduction List of Abbreviations Part I: Historical Narrative 1. Studying the Vietnam War 2. Vietnam: Historical Background Roots of the Vietnamese Culture and State The Impact of French Colonialism The Rise of Vietnamese Nationalism The Origins of Vietnamese Communism 3. United States: Historical Background Idealism and Realism in U.S. Foreign Relations The United States and the Open Door in Asia The World Wars: The Legacies of Wilson and Munich The Origins of the Cold War 4. The French War in Vietnam The August Revolution Outbreak of the Franco-Vietminh War U.S. Support of France Dienbienphu and the Geneva Conference 5. The Diem Years: Eisenhower The Decision to Back Ngo Dinh Diem The Non-election of 1956 The Illusion of Nation Building NLF: Rise of the Southern Insurgency 6. The Diem Years: Kennedy Counterinsurgency Warfare The Buddhist Crisis The Diem Assassination What if Kennedy Had Lived? 7. The American War in Vietnam: Escalation The Gulf of Tonkin Incident Rolling Thunder Johnson Decides on a Land War in Asia Theories of Causation 8. The American War in Vietnam: Strategy The Draft Attrition Strategy and Body Count Humpin' It: The American Soldier The Air War Diplomacy The Resilient Enemy 9. The American War in Vietnam: The Limits of Power The Tet offensive The Antiwar Movement and the Media Johnson's Decision to Stop Escalation The Presidential Election of 1968 10. The American War in Vietnam: De-escalation Vietnamization and More Bombing Cambodia and Kent State Negotiations and the Paris Peace Accords DRV Victory in 1975 11. The War What Will Not Go Away The Postwar Wars in Southeast Asia American Vietnam Veterans Films, Fiction, and Poetry Postmortems Part II: The Vietnam War from A to Z Part III: Chronology Part IV: Resource Guide 1. General Works 2. History of Southeast Asia and U.S. Foreign Relations 3. The Diem Years 4. North Vietnam and the Vietcong 5. Escalation of the American War 6. The American Way of War 7. The Limits of American Power 8. The End of the American War 9. The Legacy of the Vietnam War 10. Films and Documentaries 11. Electronic Resources Part V: Appendices Appendix 1. Documents Appendix 2. Statistics Index

Promotional Information

The Vietnam War remains a major point of reference in discussions of U.S. foreign policy and national character. The lessons and legacies of the most divisive event in U.S. history in the twentieth century are hotly debated to this day. Written by a renowned scholar of the conflict, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War provides students and researchers with the materials to think seriously about the conflict's many paradoxes and ramifications.

About the Author

David L. Anderson is professor of history and interim dean of arts and sciences at the University of Indianapolis. He is the author of Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre and Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953-1961.

Reviews

[A]n outstanding ready-reference source... [Anderson] should be commended for compiling such an informative, balanced, and unbiased reference source for the most contentious war in American history. Booklist Successfully compresses the copiously documented, labyrinthine history of the Vietnamese conflict into a single economical volume... a fascinating survey of the war... expertly crafted... strongly recommended. Choice A well-organized, succinct, and welcome work of synthesis that brings together the main lines of historical controversy in particularly engaging ways... clearly the best short introduction available to the scholarship on the wars in Vietnam and deserves a wide and appreciative audience. -- Mark Bradley International History Review This volume is practical, useful and trustworthy, and will become indispensable for many teachers and scholars, whether they approach the war from a traditional historical, a sociological, a cultural studies, or an interdisciplinary framework. -- Matthew Stewart American Studies International Anderson expertly reviews the considerable accumulated opinion on the Vietnam War... highly recommended. American Reference Books Annual The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War is an outstanding primer to the conflict and the scholarship it has inspired. -- Andrew L. Johns Journal of Conflict Studies

[A]n outstanding ready-reference source... [Anderson] should be commended for compiling such an informative, balanced, and unbiased reference source for the most contentious war in American history. Booklist Successfully compresses the copiously documented, labyrinthine history of the Vietnamese conflict into a single economical volume... a fascinating survey of the war... expertly crafted... strongly recommended. Choice A well-organized, succinct, and welcome work of synthesis that brings together the main lines of historical controversy in particularly engaging ways... clearly the best short introduction available to the scholarship on the wars in Vietnam and deserves a wide and appreciative audience. -- Mark Bradley International History Review This volume is practical, useful and trustworthy, and will become indispensable for many teachers and scholars, whether they approach the war from a traditional historical, a sociological, a cultural studies, or an interdisciplinary framework. -- Matthew Stewart American Studies International Anderson expertly reviews the considerable accumulated opinion on the Vietnam War... highly recommended. American Reference Books Annual The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War is an outstanding primer to the conflict and the scholarship it has inspired. -- Andrew L. Johns Journal of Conflict Studies

University of Indianapolis history professor David L. Anderson (Facing My Lai) combines three different formats in his concise Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War: a historical summary of the conflict from French occupation through North Vietnam's victory, organized around key controversial questions ("Was Johnson a War Hawk or a Reluctant Warrior?"); an A-Z mini-encyclopedia of all things Vietnam War; and an extensive list of resources and documents, plus a detailed chronology that runs from 207 B.C. ("Kingdom of Nam Viet founded") through Clinton's extension of diplomatic recognition to socialist Vietnam in 1995. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.