Hi all,
I'm not usually one to read a lot of history books, but I've just finished reading Christopher Robbins' excellent book "The Ravens" about the secret war in Laos and found it one of the most fascinating reads I've had for a while. I was wondering if anyone could recommend something in a similar vein about the Vietnam war?
I particularly enjoyed how it was from a relatively objective standpoint, not being afraid to criticise the US role, but focused mainly on personal accounts and stories, making it really readable.
Any ideas?
The Vietnam War and its historiography is very much not objectional at all, but it usually comes down to one single issue in terms of what scholars can't agree on. There are two very distinct school of thoughts when it comes to the scholarship of Vietnam War however, and I feel to get a good overview of the war out of both "perspectives", it's good to read one book from each school.
I will recommend you two books. One is written by a journalist who, together with other journalists, essentially wrote the first few big books over the Vietnam War and began the Vietnam War historiography. He is, however, a journalist and not a historian. It should also be kept in mind that he himself was involved in reporting many of the things that happened after 1965 and belongs to the orthodox school of the Vietnam War - that is, those that see the US involvement in South Vietnam as unjustified, stupid or downright criminal depending on who you ask.
That book is Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow.
The other book is a more recent one, written by a historian and an expert in irregular conflicts of the Cold War. He belongs to the revisionist school of the Vietnam War - those that, in the light of the years of research into the subject, feel that the United States was justified in getting involved in South Vietnam and reappraises the role played by the South Vietnamese government.
Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 by Mark Moyar.
These two books should give you a big introduction to a complex war and guide you right in not only what happened but also how it has been analyzed and researched over the years since the end of the war.
I will recommend you Vietnam at War by Mark Philip Bradley.
Understanding the cultural, social and political factors that motivated Vietnamese citizens is critical to understanding the war as a whole.
Bradley does an excellent job at viewing the conflict from a South-East Asian lens, which I found to balance my existing knowledge of Vietnam very well.