Overview

The Vietnam war continues to be the focus of intense controversy. While most people - liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, historians, pundits, and citizens alike - agree that the United States did not win the war, a vocal minority argue the opposite or debate why victory never came, attributing the quagmire to everything from domestic politics to the press. The military never lost a battle; how then did it not win the war? Stepping back from this overheated fray, bestselling author John Prados takes a fresh look at both the war and the debates about it to produce a much-needed and long-overdue reassessment of one of our nation's most tragic episodes. Drawing upon several decades of research - including recently declassified documents, newly available presidential tapes, and a wide range of Vietnamese and other international sources - Prados' magisterial account weaves together multiple perspectives across an epic-sized canvas where domestic politics, ideologies, nations, and militaries all collide. Prados patiently pieces back together the events and moments, from the end of World War II until our dispiriting departure from Vietnam in 1975, that reveal a war that now appears to have been truly unwinnable - due to opportunities lost, missed, ignored, or refused. He shows how - from the Truman through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations - American leaders consistently ignored or misunderstood the realities in Southeast Asia and passed up every opportunity to avoid war in the first place or avoid becoming ever more mired in it after it began. Highlighting especially Ike's seminal and long-lasting influence on our Vietnam policy, Prados demonstrates how and why our range of choices narrowed with each passing year, while our decision-making continued to be distorted by Cold War politics and fundamental misperceptions about the culture, psychology, goals, and abilities of both our enemies and our allies in Vietnam. By turns engaging narrative history, compelling analytic treatise, and moving personal account, Prados' magnum opus challenges previous authors and should rightfully take its place as the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and accurate one-volume account of a war that - judging by the frequent analogies to the current war in Iraq - has not yet really ended for any of us.

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9780700616343

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Reviews

Prados has given us a great gift - a fresh, original, and fascinating synthesis of a long and complicated war by one of the nation's foremost experts. Christian G. Appy, author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides A monumental work of passionately engaged scholarship, written in an easy, conversational style. There is no other history of the war quite like it. Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 Should be read by the lawmakers and opinion leaders who habitually babble on about the 'lessons of the Vietnam War.' Ronald Spector, author of After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam An awe-inspiring achievement in epic form. Lloyd Gardner, author of Pay Any Price and The Long Road to Baghdad

Author Information

John Prados is a senior fellow of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. His numerous books include The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War, The Hidden History of the Vietnam War, and most recently Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA.

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