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Books > Humanities > History > American history > From 1900
The Vietnam War lasted twenty years and resulted in the deaths of
over 58,000 American soldiers, with many more Vietnamese victims.
But the roots of the American-led conflict lay in the complex
colonial history of Vietnam itself. Here, Pablo de Orellana uses
recently declassified material to provide a new interpretation of
the diplomatic failures and processes that lead to the outbreak and
continuation of the conflict. Through a focus on the first Vietnam
War, de Orellana shows how and why a Southeast Asian French colony
already devastated by two wars came to be seen as an existential
threat by policymakers in the United States, and how an attempt to
stem the influence of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China spiraled out of control. The Road to Vietnam features new
archival documents, including diplomatic notes and briefing
material, to construct a new history of America's descent into
conflict. This will be an essential resource for scholars and
students of the Vietnam War and 20th Century diplomatic history.
Historian and collector Michael Green shows in this fascinating and
graphically illustrated book that the two wars that engulfed
Indochina and North and South Vietnam over 30 years were far more
armoured in nature than typically thought of. By skilful use of
imagery and descriptive text he describes the many variants
deployed and their contribution. The ill-fated French Expeditionary
Force was largely US equipped with WW2 M3 and M5 Stuart, M4 Sherman
and M24 light tanks as well as armoured cars and half-tracks. Most
of these eventually went to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam but
were outdated and ineffective due to lack of logistics and
training. The US Army and Marine Corps build-up in the 1960s saw
vast quantities of M48 Pattons, M113 APCs and many specialist
variants and improvised armoured vehicles arrive in theatre. The
Australians brought their British Centurion tanks. But it was the
Russians, Chinese and North Vietnamese who won the day and their
T-38-85 tanks, ZSU anti-aircraft platforms and BTR-40 and -50 swept
the Communists to victory. This fine book brings details and images
of all these diverse weaponry to the reader in one volume.
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