The Washington Times published my review of The Vietnam War: An Intimate History, the companion book to the PBS TV series.
With the anniversary of the
fall of South Vietnam to the Communist North on April 30, 1975, veterans of
that war, those who lived through the era and those interested in history, may
want to read Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns’ coffee-table companion book to the
PBS series “The Vietnam War.”
“America’s involvement in
Vietnam began in secrecy. It ended, thiry years later, in failure, witnessed by
the entire world,” the book begins. “It was begun in good faith by decent
people out of fateful misunderstandings, American over-confidence, and Cold War
miscalculation.”
The book also reminds us that
58,000 Americans died in the war, and at least 250,000 South Vietnamese also
died. More than a million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Communists died in the
war, as well as an estimated 2 million North and South Vietnamese civilians.
“For those Americans who
fought in it, and for those who merely glimpsed it on the nightly news — the
Vietnam War was a decade of agony, the most divisive period since the Civil
War.”
… “The Vietnam War: An
Intimate History” is an impressive-looking book, with a vast array of photos
that accompanies a look back at the long and complicated war. Unfortunately,
the companion book suffers from the same bias we saw in the television series.
… Many veterans believed in
the war, many volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and many Vietnam veterans are
proud of their service. Many Americans, then and now, believe we should have
gone all out to win the war. Certainly, the many South Vietnamese murdered and
imprisoned by the Communists after the fall of the South, and the many
Vietnamese “boat people” who endured hardships and sacrifices to escape the
Communists, wish we had stayed the course.
You can read the rest of the
review via the below link:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/29/book-reveiw-the-vietnam-war-an-intimate-history-by/
As I noted in my review,
readers may want to read Lt. Gen. Philip Davidson’s Vietnam At War: The History 1946-1975 for a bit of
balance.
