Vietnam and America: The Most Comprehensive Documented History of the Vietnam War

Original title in English 
by Authors: Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, H. Bruce Franklin
Publisher: Grove Press, 2nd edition (July 14, 1995)





Reviews:
(by Publishers Weekly)

Fearful that an "America ignorant and innocent of Vietnam can again freely move against the self-determination of other nations," the editors have compiled here a history of United States involvement in Vietnam that draws equally on original material and surveys. Included are Vietnam's 1945 Declaration of Independence part of which paraphrases our own. The highlights of other key statements, speeches and treaties of the past 40 years, as well as such widely varied selections as Robert Scheer on the "Vietnam lobby" of the '50s, Seymour Hersh's account of the My Lai massacre, General Giap's recollection of the fall of Dien Bien Phu, and several excerpts from the Pentagon Papers. Although the publication of this material in one volume is immensely useful, the editors' notes are sometimes overbearing, as if the reader isn't trusted to come independently to their conclusion that U.S. policy in Vietnam should be condemned.
(by Library Journal)
The editors of this important anthology participated in the „teach-in'' movement of 1965, which mobilized the academic community against U.S. policy in Vietnam. Patterned after Gettleman's bestselling sourcebook of the period, Vietnam: history, documents, and opinions (1956), this work is chiefly designed to let the facts speak for themselves. Essential documents are reprinted, including the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the 1954 Geneva Conference Declaration, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and excerpts from the Pentagon Papers, together with well-researched notes, introductions, and an abstract preceding each piece. Controversial issues are explored (a whole chapter is devoted to the antiwar movement), but the selections are balanced fairly. Official statements by top political and military leaders on both sides are included. This convenient one-volume compilation of a wide range of largely primary source material is highly recommended for most libraries. Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno

Vietnam Wars 1945-1990

Original title in English by Author: Marilyn Young
Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 1991)

Reviews:
(by Publishers Weekly)

In this dark account of the political and diplomatic sides of the Vietnam wars and the psychic aftermath, the author contends that the Indochina experience refuted (temporarily) the simplistic assumptions that in foreign policy America always "meant well" and that communism was always "bad." The epithets popularly employed to characterize the enemy in Vietnam--"indifferent to human life," "dishonest," "ruthless"--came to characterize our own actions as well. From counterinsurgency expert Edward Lansdale's "cheerful brutalization of democratic values" to President Nixon's attempt to "make war look like peace," the moral breakdown is assessed here in disturbing detail. Young goes on to argue that more recent U.S. intervention in Lebanon, Libya, Grenada and Panama suggests that few lessons were learned in Vietnam--indeed, that the past decade has seen a dangerous resurgence of native faith in the benevolence of American foreign meddling. This, she maintains, goes hand in hand with a renewed commitment to use force in a global crusade against Third World revolutions and governments. Young, a history professor at New York University, paints a grim picture of our part in the Indochina war and its excoriating effects on the nation.

(by Library Journal)

Two new books join the many which try to summarize and analyze the Vietnam War, its precedents, and its epilog, with differing approaches and results. Young (history, NYU) coauthored, along with William G. Rosenberg, Transforming Russia & China ( LJ 1/1/82). Her current study focuses on the American experience, while touching on the periods before and after direct American involvement. She provides some useful insights, and details debates among American leaders, but she draws predominantly on published sources and offers little new information. More significantly, her arguments are heavily biased (she seems to think that only the American and South Vietnamese military and governments demonstrated cruelty, corruption, deception, and destruction), leading to some troubling conclusions (e.g., that U.S. bombing of Cambodia may have been responsible for the later horrors of the Khmer Rouge), and leaving the reader unable to place events in any kind of valid historical perspective. In stark contrast to Young's black-and-white picture, Olson and Roberts (history, Sam Houston State Univ. and Purdue Univ., respectively) paint a picture of many colors. This successful popular history of the war is less scholarly, less detailed than The Vietnam Wars , but the better-balanced coverage throughout yields a more insightful, instructive history. At times the authors' emotionalism (e.g., the account of the My Lai massacre) clouds their presentation, and the otherwise fascinating discussion of the postwar media's depiction of the war is not up to date, but general readers will find their book to be a helpful and accessible introduction to the complexities of the Vietnam experience.