Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Getting In, 1945–1952
1. Ho Chi Minh: The Untried Gamble
2. The United States, Its Allies and the Bao Dai Experiment
Chapter 2: Fighting Shy, 1953–1961
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Wholehearted Support of Ngo Dinh Diem
4. Geneva, 1954: The Precarious Peace
5. The CIA Comes to Vietnam
Chapter 3: Digging In, 1961–1968
6. No "Non-Essential Areas": Kennedy and Vietnam
7. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution
8. Lyndon Johnson Chooses War
9. The Tet Offensive, 1968
10. A Dissenter in the Administration
Chapter 4: Getting Out, 1968–1975
11. Nixon, Kissinger, and a Pax Americana
12. Bombing Hanoi, Mining Haiphong, and the Moscow Summit
13. Stabbed in the Back
Chapter 5: Allies and Enemies
14. Ngo Dinh Diem, the Impossible Ally
15. Ngo Dinh Diem, Modernizer
16. The Foreign Policy of North Vietnam
17. The National Liberation Front and the Land
Chapter 6: The Battlefield
18. Getting Hit
19. Feeling Cold
20. Nursing and Disillusionment
21. They Did Not Know Good From Evil
22. My Lai: The Killing Begins
Chapter 7: International Dimensions of the War
23. The Soviet Union and American Escalation
24. China and American Escalation
25. The Vietnamese and Global Revolutions
Chapter 8: Laos and Cambodia
26. The War in Laos
27. Bombing Cambodia: A Critique
28. Bombing Cambodia: A Defense
Chapter 9: Interpreting the War
29. A Clash of Cultures
30. An Opportunity for Power
31. A Defense of Freedom
32. An Act of Imperialism
33. An Assertion of Manhood
Chapter 10: The War in America
34. Working-Class War
35. Seeds of a Movement
36. Women at the Barricades, Then and Now
Chapter 11: The Legacy of War
37. Saigon: The End and the Beginning
38. Homecoming USA
39. Amerasians: A People in Between
Chapter 12: Afterword
40. Letting Go

About the Author

Andrew J. Rotter is Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Colgate University.

Reviews

Andrew Rotter's anthology on the Vietnam War has always been the best book available on this conflict. This third edition has been substantially revised. Rotter has retained those articles that are essential for understanding the scope and complexity of the Vietnam War and has included new articles that will give students even more insight into the many facets of American and Southeast Asian history that continue to haunt us to this day.
*Steven Hood, Ursinus College*

Light at the End of the Tunnel is the best Vietnam War anthology available. Andrew Rotter’s freshman-friendly twenty-page capsule history of this complex conflict is a godsend to teachers and worth the price of the book all by itself. I didn't think this anthology could get any better, but darned if Rotter hasn't pulled it off.
*Seth Jacobs, Boston College*

As in the earlier editions, Andrew Rotter shows a keen understanding of the best ways to enhance classroom debate, compiling a text that is accessible, readable, and sensitive to the deep interest in Vietnam shared by today's students. In its diversity and centrality of topics, its balanced inclusion of readable, accessible and academically respected articles, and its genuine tolerance and sympathy, this text remains one of the best options available in support of Vietnam courses.
*Susan Farnsworth, Trinity (Washington) University*