Historians, How accurate is the Ken Burns Vietnam War documentary?

by PsyRockFan21

And would you show it to college students if you were teaching a class on the Vietnam War?

Bernardito

I've written an answer to a question in the past that asked about whether or not it was reflective of current research/historiography. My answer was that it was not, as you can read here. Since then, a roundtable has been held in which several esteemed historians of the Vietnam War era has written quite critical about the documentary. You can find it through this link.

The documentary, however, would have some value in being shown to college students. Not for the facts or as an accurate interpretation of the Vientam War, but rather as a piece of media for them to understand the historiography of the conflict and to contrast the very America-centric narrative told in the documentary versus where current research is today. A teacher could ask several important questions surrounding who is included, who is allowed to speak, what is missing, and why. This would be a great way, I believe, to make students think critical about the role of documentaries in spreading certain views about historical events.

crrpit

Hi there! Your question doesn't break any rules, and we're happy to let it stand. However, be warned that questions that boil down to "fact check X for me" rarely get satisfactory answers. Critiquing an entire series is a lot of work, and people are rarely willing to watch something just so that they can respond to a question on Reddit. It is often more effective to ask more targeted questions that can be answered directly - you are welcome to make more than one post if you need to.