The Vietnam War Reexamined (Cambridge Essential Histories)
Cambridge University Press, 12/14/2017
EAN 9781107628175, ISBN10: 1107628172
Paperback, 266 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm
Language: English
Going beyond the dominant orthodox narrative to incorporate insight from revisionist scholarship on the Vietnam War, Michael G. Kort presents the case that the United States should have been able to win the war, and at a much lower cost than it suffered in defeat. Presenting a study that is both historiographic and a narrative history, Kort analyzes important factors such as the strong nationalist credentials and leadership qualities of South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem; the flawed military strategy of 'graduated response' developed by Robert McNamara; and the real reasons South Vietnam collapsed in the face of a massive North Vietnamese invasion in 1975. Kort shows how the US commitment to defend South Vietnam was not a strategic error but a policy consistent with US security interests during the Cold War, and that there were potentially viable strategic approaches to the war that might have saved South Vietnam.
Introduction
understanding the Vietnam War
1. The Vietnam War in history
2. Vietnam 101
origins to 1946
3. Vietnamese communism, 1920–1946
4. America comes to Vietnam, 1954–1963
5. The Americanization of the Vietnam War, 1963–1968
6. The Vietnamization of the war and the 'lost victory'
7. The Paris Peace Accords to Black April
Summary and epilogue.