Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $9.99 You Save: $11.01 (52%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.99 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Vietnam: A History
Book Review: The best place to begin studying America's war in Vietnam.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an excellent factual overview of the American experience in Vietnam. Stanley Karnow was there, as a reporter, and this book has become a staple in the vast collection of American Vietnam War books.This is an excellent primer for those looking for a basic chronological understanding of the events of the war. Unlike so many of the more recent volumes on the subject, this book contains almost no speculation. This book is well researched, well written, and pretty safe, in that you can rely on the factual veracity of its contents.
If you're looking for complex political theories, you'll need to dive deeper into the subject, such as Logevall's Choosing War, or Kaiser's American Tragedy.
This book also contains some excellent, if standard, photographs, a basic chronology, and a very brief `cast of characters' that are all of use to the beginner. If you are said beginner, you also want to tackle Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie.
Book Review: Comprehensive overview
Summary: 5 Stars
I was just a little boy during the Vietnam War, so this book has served as an excellent overview of the politics and sociology that made the Vietnam war what it was. This is not a military strategy group, and it is basically what I'd call a view from 10,000 feet. Reading about the inept, and uncaring Johnson administration was very disturbing. To read about Johnson's band of white collar warriors continually receiving recommendations to exit the war from advisors in Vietnam, and the continual sweeping under the table of bad news, all in service of Johnson's political aspirations, made me sick. And frightened if that kind of political hubris is taking place in George W. Bush's administration as the USA embarks on a war with Iraq. There are a number of similarities...old white men who want to play soldier, invasion of a country that the USA does not understand, and whose people really don't want the USA there, and a blind belief that all people of the world seek a USA style political and economic system.Book Review: Flawed But Fine
Summary: 4 Stars
Much of Mr. Karnow's work is outstanding. Vietnam's historical development, especially the two century lead up to the present time, is expertly handled. The Johnson Administration's slide into the Vietnam quagmire and its inept responses to policy flaws and South Vietnamese political and military setbacks is documented clearly by the author. Karnow expertly portrays the chaotic South Vietnamese political and military situation and seemed to be well-aquainted with all the major figures in South Vietnam. Karnow explains a South Vietnam where major villages within an hour's drive of Saigon would be VietCong strongpoints, resilient enough to be overrun by American forces only to return to being VietCong villages as soon as the Americans left. Although Karnow does not dictate to his readers, one is left with the idea that the war was unwinnable as the Americans chose to fight it and that the war was utterly foolish. However, here is where one of Karnow's flaws comes to bear. He showers contempt on Johnson Administration figure Walter Rostow's suggestion that the only way to defeat the communists in Vietnam was to invade the North and take Hanoi. Yet, in hindsight, invading the North and occupying Hanoi, the organizational center of the communists, was the only way to defeat the communists. Karnow spends little time explaining American military strategy; what the American soldiers on the ground went through is largely ignored. The South Vietnamese military is belittled by Karnow but why it was often ineffectual is not really explained by Karnow. Karnow's explanation of the rapid collapse of the South Vietnamese army in 1975 is lacking as Karnow tells the reader that the South Vietnamese controlled over 80 % of South Vietnam a year before its ignominious defeat. As 1974 begins, Karnow paints a picture of a confident South Vietnamese army on the march. By Christmas, 1974, the first provincial capital is taken by the communists and the demoralization and collapse of the South Vietnamese is at hand. Why? As for North Vietnam, Karnow spends little time in explaining the merciless collectivization of the society. It is not in Karnow's make-up to be too critical of Ho Chi Minh and his fanatical communists. Karnow's villains are to his right and not to his left. Karnow's claim that North Vietnamese General Giap was as much of a military genius as Napoleon or Lee is laughable. Giap had many millions of Vietnamese men to sacrifice to obtain victory and he was more than willing to send them off to their deaths for the greater glory of the communist future. Lastly, it is plain that Karnow does not see Ho Chi Minh or General Giap or their communist fellow-travelers in blood as the wicked creatures that they were. Karnow is almost gleeful that the communist Vietnamese raised their flag over Saigon in April, 1975 and continue to misrule that wretched nation 28 years later.Book Review: Op-Ed History
Summary: 3 Stars
This book has many merits: It is comprehensive, it attempts to explain Vietnamese history, and it is full of on the spot interviews and remembrances. This remains the basic history text of record on American involvement in Vietnam. There is a breadth of perspective here that is lacking in many accounts of this most up-close and personal of wars.
Despite these advantages, the book has some real limitations. The writing is pedestrian, the characterizations (if one can say that about history) tend to be thin, and Karnow fails to convey a sense of wholeness in many chapters. The book at times feels more like a collection of dispatches from a reporter in the field (which Karnow was in Vietnam) rather than the work of a historian who has integrated fact and theory based on deep understanding and research. As comprehensive as the book tries to be, Karow's reach may have exeeded his grasp with his project.
The book also suffers from a real bias against American involvement and the American establishment, Republican and Democratic. When "Uncle Ho" commits murders in the thousands the book makes one feel like this is a natural outpouring of exuburant nationalism rather than good old fashioned absolutism. But when the admittedly corrupt and inept Diem regime or confused ARVN or American soldiers commit atrocities, the condemnation is acid and biting. Communists are presented as "golden," or "tough," while Southerners or Amercians are usually charactured as "greedy," or "arrogant."
There is also an irony in the book's approach. Karnow should be complemented for attempting to fit American involvement in Vietnam into the wider context of Vietnam's history. However, Vietnam's history is presented mostly through lense of Western or Colonial contact. There is little sense of Vietnam as a nation, and its people, religion and history are merely players on the stage of American Imperialism. In suggesting that the policy of containment as expressed in the Vietnam war was a misjudgment of Vietnamese Nationalism (which is now common wisdom), Karnow ironically describes that nation as through an American TV camera, rather than a Vietnamese watercolor.
Now, almost 20 years after it was written, the Vietnam: A History still has valuable perspective and information. But be forewarned: This is a myopic document of American journalistic self-analysis.
Book Review: vietnam a history
Summary: 5 Stars
to have been in vietnam from may68 -may 69 was for me a wide eye opener. this book by stanley karnow is clear and to the point. over and over in the 600+ pages many of my own thoughts seemed to come of the pages. 1 we had no plan. 2 the us was involved in a coup of diem after working with him for 8 year. 3 the south vietnamese never wanted to fight. 4 corruption was everywhere. as the us leaders stumbled along and as bad as it was,the worst was the potential of a nuclear bomb. i thought to myself what is a tatical nuclear bomb?. stanley karnow also brought out how our own officials went at each other state dept, cia, joint chiefs, defense dept,and kissinger seemed to want to be a department unto himself when i finished the book my primary thought was,what were we doing for all those years. how sad so many died. we should have listened to ho chi minh after ww2.