Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Vietnam: A History
Book Review: Study this history to avoid repeating it
Summary: 5 Stars
A very detailed study of not just the military dimension but the underlying political motivations and manoeuvers which created and sustained the 'Vietnam war'. The author has a mature but never cynical position which not surprisingly exposes the unprincipled actions of the few that created suffering for the many.
Only one thing about this book shocked me - the resonance and even clear parallels with actions in our own decade with the US offensive in Iraq. The book exposes a litany of distortion, censorship and outright lying for US domestic political purposes, as well as abduction and 'rendition' of prisoners; it's all too easy to assume that the same approaches are equally active today.
Book Review: THE definitive history of both Vietnam and the war itself.
Summary: 4 Stars
This massive work manages to convey both the broader sense of history that many other books lack and an excellent history of the war itself.UNderstanding the country's history is crucial to understanding the folly of our involvement there and the author carefully portrays both the roots of the country's nationalism and its long history of tragedy and conflict.Karnow also goes to great pains to remain objective about the war and for this reason this is the best factual account of the war itself. He does not have an axe to grind as do many of the book's successors. All other books must compare themselves to this one, and all historians of the war must read Karnow's book. However, Karnow's objectivity makes this book read like a textbook, it is difficult to plow through at times, though the work is well worth it. For pure histroy, read it, but if you are also interested in a more passionate account of the war, read A Bright Shining Lie or The Best and the Brightest. Those books will have you in tears by the end, this book will merely increase your knowledge of this seminal event.Book Review: TWO Must reads on Vietnam
Summary: 5 Stars
I wholeheartedly agree with the other reviewer: "Vietnam: A History" and "The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War" must be in everyone's library who wants to get a complete understanding of Vietnam, the Vietnam War, Vietnam post-1975 and US/Soviet involvement.Book Review: The American Civil War...
Summary: 5 Stars
...at least the one in the 20th Century, was fought over this country, and the ramifications reverberate today. There were those who saw, and those who will never see. Those who lived through that period, and took sides in one camp or the other are unlikely to ever change their minds, even if the motivation took the form of the proverbial lightning bolt on the way to Damascus. And certainly one book is unlikely to do it, as evidenced by some of the other reviews, particularly the 1 and 2-star ones. However, for the "younger generations," those who look back on the ancient events of America's involvement in Vietnam as they might the Peloponnesian Wars, and want to read just one book, this one would be it, the sine qua non of books on Vietnam, covering both the prelude to American involvement, as well as the entire war to the end, in 1975.
Stanley Karnow is a reporter of astonishing erudition. He combines the first-hand knowledge that comes from the "field work," with a scholarly appreciation of the historical forces at work. Like other soldiers who were in the war, I've had my problems with reporters, and what they chose to see and report. Karnow neatly addresses the issue of page 279, when he reports an exchange between Peter Arnett of the Associated Press (and later famous for his coverage from Baghdad of the '91 war) and Admiral Felt. Arnett had asked Felt a hard question after the Battle of Ap Bac, and Felt shot back: "Get on the team." All too many did, buying the line that was peddled at what even they would call "the Five O'clock Follies," the spin the America military would put on the war each day for press consumption. Karnow was one of the courageous ones, along with Neil Sheehan, Jonathan Schell, and others, who would report what they saw. But as he sardonically says of others: "Frequently, though, the magazines distorted the dispatches of their reporters and relied instead on guidance from White House...True to their tradition, "Time" and "Life" stood up for America (p 503). In terms of how people "spun" the facts, Karnow quotes Komer about a situation report that was filed, and Komer corrects to say that he was asked to file a PROGRESS report, and thus all the non-progress had to be edited out. (p 515)
Over half of this almost 700 page book is devoted to events prior to the major American military buildup in 1965. It covers the French involvement, from the 1800's through their colonial demise in 1954. Another excellent book on this era is "River Road to China," which I recently reviewed. The first chapter of the book is aptly entitled, "The War Nobody Won," (like almost all wars.) It updates the 1983 edition to the early `90's. There are so many valid points to highlight, it is hard to select only a few, but one that has always been particularly infuriating to me was the campaign to give the MIA families the false hope that their loved ones might still be alive in Vietnam; all of which was a pretext for maintaining diplomatic non-recognition of the country. It was an effective campaign, and Karnow cites a "Time" magazine survey published in April, 1990 that showed 62 percent of Americans--and 84% of veterans--maintained that the Vietnamese were holding U.S. captives (p 55). Meanwhile, for all this support of imaginary veterans, the very real ones here in the States were all too often denied treatment for conditions caused by military service, such as the devastating effects from Agent Orange.
Like Sheehan, Karnow excoriates McNamara, the master of "can-doism," and famous for his statement: "every quantitative measurement...shows that we are winning the war" (p 271). Yet the qualitative picture "in the field," that was daily rubbed in the face of the G.I's willing to see was so vastly different. Karnow quotes Mark Smith, formerly of the 1st Cav. Division, who was also fascinated by the physical beauty in Binh Dinh province where I served. Karnow says of Binh Dinh: "...the lush green mountains rose from a plain of rice fields divided with such geometrical precision as to suggest that the peasants who had landscaped the scene were natural mathematicians. And then Karnow quotes Smith, who felt intimidated by the "subtle, incomprehensible villages--whole societies right in front of us, yet impenetrable even after we had entered them, never understanding anything or seeing anything understandable, the people staring at us as if we were from Mars." (p 482).
As for those who didn't see, it would be hard to top the statement made by someone who hide in the Texas Air National Guard during the war. During President Bush's "diplomatic" visit to Vietnam, he told the Vietnamese that the "lessons" of the Vietnam War are that if we had stayed long enough, we would have won! As for the "lessons" that one of those who did see, Karnow, said, and it was reported in this month's "Newsweek": When the commanding general of American and Allied forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal asked: "Is there anything we learned in Vietnam that we can apply to Afghanistan?" Karnow's reply was just as simple: "The main thing I learned is that we never should have been there in the first place."
Truly excellent advise for Afghanistan as well. This book is more than a 5-star read, it should be required reading for all American students.
Book Review: The Bad War
Summary: 4 Stars
This noted book on Vietnam foregoes detailed accounts of battle and instead provides an often compelling and complete account of the political forces that led to America's tragic commitment to a brutal, futile war. Pages 55-200 drag a bit with detailed, textbookish information about Vietnam's past monarchs and years under French colonial rule. There's an endless barrage of short Asian and long French names to get through and forget. While historical perspective is needed, this section should have been structured in a better narrative, and condensed.
From the Kennedy years on, however, the book is a page turner, a fascinating account of how America's so-called "best and brightest" government officials and awesome military power were no match for an enemy whose persistence, patience and capacity for suffering knew no bounds.
It wasn't that America wasn't warned. In the 1940s, Ho Chi Minh, the revered communist leader and nationalist, told the French: "You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win."
How right he was in regard to America's involvement later: 60,000 American dead - 600,000 Vietnamese dead - victory for the communists.
The scar of Vietnam seems to be branded on the American conscience.
At least relatively objective accounts (and Vietnam/A History thus qualifies) of the web we wove and suffocated in will, perhaps, offer a lesson for future generations.
Perhaps.