Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Vietnam: A History
Book Review: One of two "must" books for a Vietnam collection
Summary: 5 Stars
Karnow has the gift. A very meticulous written treatise on the entire Vietnam scene. (Yes, there were others there before the "ugly American".) Details the history, culture, and mind set of the people. Combine this with Palmer's "Summons of the Trumpet", and your library is complete. Throw in Herring and Lewy, then you will understand Vietnam in its entirety....however, Karnow fills in all the blanks and furnishes unanswered questions. An outstanding book written by a scholar who has an intimate insight to Asian culture, politics, and society. Plan on reading it more than once....much material that may take time for the novice to digest. Has an accompanying documentary video series put out by PBS that helps somewhat by giving visual depiction. Bottom line....make this book a "must" in your Vietnam collection.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: Overview of an immense tragedy and complex subject
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading this book is a project well worth the effort. In the recent past America's War in Vietnam has been as much a controversy as ever. Here is a book that tells the broad story of Vietnam from the earliest known history to the defeat of the South Vietnamese to their Communist rivals from the north in 1975. The author is eminently qualified to tell the story. He was a correspondent, covering America's War and involvement in Vietnam from 1959 until the end of the fighting in 1975. The story line in interspersed with accounts of interviews with many of the prominant and lesser known participants on both sides of the war.
In regard to America's decisions in Vietnam, there are aspects of Vietnam's history worth noting. For centuries, this country of Mandarin and Confucian traditions with descendents from China, struggled to gain a national identity and independence from China. It was not in their tradition to be dominated by their neighbors to the north. When the French established themselves as a colonial power in Vietnam, the French disrupted the organization of this rural, agrarian country. By the twentieth century, the French learned how to exploit the Vietnamese by dislocating the peasants from the their land and forcing them to work under brutal conditions in industry or for large landowners. The author states, "These primitive French capitalists drove Vietnamese nationalists to extremes". After World War II the French reasserted their colonial aspirations. At this time, Ho Chi Minh held an uncontested Nationalist position in the North and was avoiding ideological linkages. He asked for assistence from the U.S. against the French, but was ignored.
The domino theory was born out of fears that if given the chance, the Stalinists and Maoists would overrun Indochina. The difficulty was that there was never a front line to defend. Despite the U.S. continual insistence in viewing the defense of Vietnam in black and white terms, it was never clear where to draw the line. The U.S. made the South Vietnamese government, consistently corrupt and habitually valuing favoritism over merit, as their bulwark of support. The Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations all pinned their hopes on the South Vietnamese rulers, all with limited success.
During the Johnson administration, the quagmire deepened. The more firepower the U.S. unleashed at the the Communist insurgency and the greater the American involvement, the more the resistence. American boys were drafted to fight in jungles of heat, rain, and insects on the other side of the globe. Not only was it nearly impossible to identify who the enemy was, but it was nearly impossible to hold the countryside once it had been won. The insurgents kept popping up everywhere, despite a horrific bombing compaign. The author does not detail the huge amount of environmental damage wrought by the bombing and the dumping of defoliates such as agent orange and napalm. Indeed, such enormous damage pales beside the tremendous loss of human life.
The controversies concerning the Nixon Administration deserve special attention. The author gives us a historical overview here. The Nixon administration did what Johnson was most afraid to do - expand the war; and finally turned the war over to the South Vietnamese (Vietnamization), virtually assuring the final result. Nixon and Kissinger's secret war against Cambodia is a subject in itself, as well as the linkage to Watergate.
Book Review: Recommended by Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 295
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is on the "Recommended Reading List" of Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 295, Indianapolis, IndianaBook Review: Steamy Historical Event
Summary: 5 Stars
Stanley Karnow knew Vietnamese history like the back of his hand which also surprised even him with the discovery when he showed-up in the 1980's to do interviews for the book that one of his Vietnamese co-workers back in the 1960's, Colonel Bui Tin, turned-out to be a Viet Minh spy. The historical events was told more or less through the lens of Colonel Bui Tin ending with the Colonel lying flat on his back in a state of exuberance in the backyard of the Presidential Palace in Saigon "Ho Chi Minh City."