In The Sum of Our Dreams, Louis P. Masur offers a sweeping yet compact history of America from its beginnings to the current moment. For general readers seeking an accessible, single-volume account, one that challenges but does not overwhelm, and which distills and connects the major events and figures in the country's past in a single narrative, here is that book. Evoking Barack Obama's belief that America remains the "sum of its dreams," Masur locates the origin of those dreams-of freedom, equality, and opportunity-and traces their progress chronologically, illuminating the nation's struggle over time to articulate and fulfill their promise. Moving from the Colonial Era, to the Revolutionary Period, the Early Republic, and through the Civil War, Masur turns his attention to Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Age, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, Civil Rights, Vietnam, and Watergate, and then laying out clearly and concisely what underlies the divisiveness that has characterized American civic life over the last forty years-and now more than ever. Above all, however, Masur lets the story of American tell itself. Inspired by James Baldwin's observation that "American history is longer, larger, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it," he expands our notion of that history while identifying its individual threads. The Sum of Our Dreams will be the new go-to single volume for anyone wanting a foundational understanding of the nation's past, and its present.

Why everything you think you know about Australia's Vietnam War is wrong. When Mark Dapin first interviewed Vietnam veterans and wrote about the war, he swallowed (and regurgitated) every misconception. He wasn't alone. In Australia's Vietnam, Dapin reveals that every stage of Australia's commitment to the Vietnam War has been misunderstood, misinterpreted and shrouded in myth. From army claims that every national serviceman was a volunteer; and the level of atrocities committed by Australian troops; to the belief there no welcome home parades until the late 1980s and returned soldiers were met by angry protesters. Australia's Vietnam is a major contribution to the understanding of Australia's experience of the war and will change the way we think about memory and military history. Acclaimed journalist and bestselling military historian Mark Dapin busts long-held and highly charged myths about the Vietnam War Dapin reveals his own mistakes and regrets as a journalist and military historian and his growing realisation that the stereotypes of the Vietnam War are far from the truth This book will change the way military history is researched and written

More than forty years have passed since the official end of the Vietnam War, yet the war's legacies endure. Its history and iconography still provide fodder for film and fiction, communities of war refugees have spawned a wide Vietnamese diaspora, and the United States military remains embroiled in unwinnable wars with eerie echoes of Vietnam. Looking Back on the Vietnam War brings together scholars from a broad variety of disciplines, who offer fresh insights on the war's psychological, economic, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. Each essay examines a different facet of the war, from its representation in Marvel comic books to the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers exposed to Agent Orange. By putting these pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies. Though they come from diverse scholarly backgrounds, ranging from anthropology to film studies, the contributors are united in their commitment to original research. Whether exploring rare archives or engaging in extensive interviews, they voice perspectives that have been excluded from standard historical accounts. Looking Back on the Vietnam War thus embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why.

By the Tet Offensive in early 1968, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as the Vietnam War raged without end. Morale was tanking. AWOL rates were rising. And in August of that year, a group of Black soldiers seized control of the infamous Long Binh Jail, burned buildings, and beat a white inmate to death with a shovel. The days of "same mud, same blood" were over, and by the end of the decade, a new generation of Black GIs had decisively rejected the slights and institutional racism their forefathers had endured. Acclaimed military historian Beth Bailey shows how the Army experienced, defined, and tried to solve racism and racial tension (in its own words, "the problem of race") in the Vietnam War era. Some individuals were sympathetic to the problem but offered solutions that were more performative than transformational, while others proposed remedies that were antithetical to the army's fundamental principles of discipline, order, hierarchy, and authority. Bailey traces a frustrating yet fascinating arc where the army initially rushed to create solutions without taking the time to fully identify the origins, causes, and proliferation of racial tension. It was a difficult, messy process, but only after Army leaders ceased viewing the issue as a Black issue and accepted their own roles in contributing to the problem did change become possible.

A monumental work of research and analysis, this is a history of the Vietnam War in a single province of the Mekong Delta over the period 1930-1975. More precisely, it is a study of the Vietnamese dimension of the "Vietnam War, " focusing on the revolutionary movement that became popularly known as the "Viet Cong." There are several distinctive features to this study: (1) it provides an explanation for the paradox of why the revolutionary movement was so successful during the war, but unable to meet the challenges of postwar developments; (2) it challenges the dominant theme of contemporary political analysis which assumes that people are "rational" actors responding to events with careful calculations of self-interest; (3) it closely examines province-level documentation that casts light on a number of important historical controversies about the war. No other history of the Vietnam War has drawn on such a depth of documentation, especially firsthand accounts that allow the Vietnamese participants to spea directly to us.

Between 1964 and 1975, 2.6 million American personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, of whom an estimated 1-1.6 million actually fought in combat. At the tip of the spear were the infantry, the "grunts" who entered an extraordinary tropical combat zone completely alien to the world they had left behind in the United States. In South Vietnam, and occasionally spilling over into neighboring Laos and Cambodia, they fought a relentless counterinsurgency and conventional war against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC). The terrain was as challenging as the enemy - soaring mountains or jungle-choked valleys; bleached, sandy coastal zones; major urban centers; riverine districts. Their opponents fought them with relentless and terrible ingenuity, on a daily basis with ambushes, booby traps, and mines, then occasionally with full-force offensives on a scale to rival the campaigns of World War II. This pocket manual draws its content not only from essential U.S. military field manuals of the Vietnam era, but also a vast collection of declassified primary documents, including rare after-action reports, intelligence analysis, first-hand accounts, and combat studies. Through these documents the pocket manual provides a deep insight into what it was like for infantry to live, survive, and fight in Vietnam, whether conducting a major airmobile search-and-destroy operation or conducting endless hot and humid small-unit patrols from jungle firebases. The book includes infantry intelligence documents about the NVA and VC threats, plus chapters explaining hard-won lessons about using weaponry, surviving and moving through the jungle, tactical maneuvers, and applications of the ubiquitous helicopter for combat and support.

The unimagined community proposes a reexamination of the Vietnam War from a perspective that has been largely excluded from historical accounts of the conflict, that of the South Vietnamese. Challenging the conventional view that the war was a struggle between the Vietnamese people and US imperialism, the study presents a wide-ranging investigation of South Vietnamese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. Beginning with a genealogy of the concept of a Vietnamese "culture," as the latter emerged during the colonial period, the book concludes with a reflection on the rise of popular culture during the American intervention. Reexamining the war from the South Vietnamese perspective, The unimagined community pursues the provocative thesis that the conflict, in this early stage, was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two competing versions of anticolonial communism. -- .

Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, National Book Award in Nonfiction A New York Times Book Review "The Year in Reading" Selection All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War-a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations. "[A] gorgeous, multifaceted examination of the war Americans call the Vietnam War-and which Vietnamese call the American War...As a writer, [Nguyen] brings every conceivable gift-wisdom, wit, compassion, curiosity-to the impossible yet crucial work of arriving at what he calls 'a just memory' of this war." -Kate Tuttle, Los Angeles Times "In Nothing Ever Dies, his unusually thoughtful consideration of war, self-deception and forgiveness, Viet Thanh Nguyen penetrates deeply into memories of the Vietnamese war...[An] important book, which hits hard at self-serving myths." -Jonathan Mirsky, Literary Review "Ultimately, Nguyen's lucid, arresting, and richly sourced inquiry, in the mode of Susan Sontag and W. G. Sebald, is a call for true and just stories of war and its perpetual legacy." -Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

The Vietnam War was arguably the most important event for America in the twentieth century. The US entered the conflict with doctrines modelled for the Cold War and a mission to wipe out Communism, but the reality of war in Vietnam confounded all expectations. This book chronicles the bloody guerrilla warfare that ensued.

The untold story of how America's secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA's Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public-and most of Congress-Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With "revelatory reporting" and "lucid prose" (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA's clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since-all the way to today's war on terrorism.

Using archival photographs sourced directly from Vietnam, specially commissioned diagrams and combat accounts from veterans, István Toperczer reveals how the MiG-21 defended Vietnam between 1966 and 1968. One of the most successful communist jet fighters ever built, the MiG-21 "Fishbed" was involved in a series of deadly duels with American fighters over North Vietnam as the USAF and US Navy ramped up strike missions during Operation Rolling Thunder, culminating in the destruction of over 70 US aircraft for the loss of 35 "Fishbeds." Having honed their skills on the subsonic MiG-17, pilots of the Vietnam People's Air Force received their first examples of the legendary MiG-21 supersonic fighter in 1966. Soon thrown into combat over North Vietnam, the guided-missile-equipped MiG-21 proved a deadly opponent for the American crews striking at targets deep into communist territory. Although the communist pilots initially struggled to come to terms with the fighter’s air search radar and weapons systems, the ceaseless cycle of combat operations quickly honed their skills. The best fighter then available to the VPAF, more than 200 MiG-21s (of various sub-types) were supplied to the North Vietnamese. In this study, leading VPAF authority István Toperczer analyzes the tactics used by the MiG-21 pilots over the bitter fighting in North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder. The highspeed ‘hit and run’ attacks employed by the communist pilots proved to be very successful, with both R-3S air-to-air missiles and heavy-caliber cannon inflicting a rising toll on American jets. Using first-hand accounts from MiG-21 pilots, battlescene artwork, combat ribbon diagrams, and armament views, the author details the important role played by the "Fishbed" in the defense of North Vietnam.

Few historians of the Vietnam War have covered the post-1975 era or engaged comprehensively with refugee politics, humanitarianism, and human rights as defining issues of the period. After Saigon's Fall is the first major work to uncover this history. Amanda C. Demmer offers a new account of the post-War normalization of US-Vietnam relations by centering three major transformations of the late twentieth century: the reassertion of the US Congress in American foreign policy; the Indochinese diaspora and changing domestic and international refugee norms; and the intertwining of humanitarianism and the human rights movement. By tracing these domestic, regional, and global phenomena, After Saigon's Fall captures the contingencies and contradictions inherent in US-Vietnamese normalization. Using previously untapped archives to recover a riveting narrative with both policymakers and nonstate advocates at its center, Demmer's book also reveals much about US politics and society in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

U.S. Marine Sergeant Tim Fortner survived 14 months in Vietnam as a door gunner in a CH-46 helicopter. Completing 27 strike flight missions, he was awarded the Air Medal and Bronze Star for meritorious service in combat. Like many veterans, his real battle didn't begin until he returned home, where he struggled to adjust to the "new normal" of American life in 1969, still haunted by his experiences during the nation's most unpopular war. His memoir describes his military training, his unit's harrying missions inserting and extracting troops over landing zones under enemy fire, and his four-decade struggle with service-connected PTSD.

Following the Text Offensive, a shift in U.S. naval strategy in 1967-1968 saw young men fresh out of high school policing the canals and tributaries of South Vietnam aboard PBRs (patrol boat, riverine)--unarmored yet heavily armed and highly maneuverable vessels designed to operate in shallow, weedy waterways. This memoir recounts the experiences of the author and his shipmates as they cruised the Viet Cong-occupied backwaters of the Mekong Delta, and their emotional metamorphosis as wartime events shaped the men they would be for the remainder of their lives.

The Vietnam War was one of America's longest, bloodiest, and most controversial wars. This volume examines the complexities of this protracted conflict and explains why the lessons learned in Vietnam are still highly relevant today. Vietnam War: The Essential Reference Guide provides a compendium of the key people, places, organizations, treaties, and events that make up the history of the war, explaining its causes, how it was conducted, and its far-reaching consequences. Written by recognized authorities, this ready-reference volume provides essential information all in one place and includes a comprehensive list of additional sources for further study. The work presents a detailed chronology that outlines the numerous battles and campaigns throughout the war, such as the Tet Offensive, the Battle of Hamburger Hill, Operation Rolling Thunder, and the Battle of Hue. Biographies on Lyndon Johnson, William Westmoreland, Robert McNamara, Ngo Dinh Diem, and other major political figures and military leaders provide insight into the individuals who played key roles in the conflict, while primary source documents such as President Nixon's speech on Vietnamization provide invaluable historical context. More than 45 contributors, including Robert K. Brigham, Cecil B. Currey, Arnold R. Isaacs, Lewis Sorley, Spencer C. Tucker, and David T. Zabecki Introductory essays provide a broad overview of the Vietnam War and help readers understand the causes and consequences of the conflict Maps depicting South Vietnam, infiltration routes, and key battles

Fire from the Sky is the first complete history of the most decorated Navy squadron of the Vietnam War. Richard C. Knott tells the dramatic history of the HAL-3 Seawolves, the U.S. Navy's first and only helicopter gunship squadron of the Vietnam War. The squadron was established "in country" to support the fast, pugnacious river patrol boats of the brown water navy. Flying combat-worn Hueys borrowed from the Army, the mission of the Seawolves quickly expanded to include rapid response air support to any friendly force in the Delta needing immediate assistance. The Seawolves inserted SEALs deep into enemy territory, and extracted them, often despite savage enemy opposition. They rescued friendly combatants from almost certain capture or death, and evacuated the wounded when Medevac helicopters were not available.

Much of the history written about the Vietnam War overlooks the U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons. These CAPs lived in the Vietnamese villages, with the difficult and dangerous mission of defending the villages from both the National Liberation Front guerrillas and the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army. The CAPs also worked to improve living conditions by helping the people with projects, such as building schools, bridges, and irrigation systems for their fields. In War in the Villages, Ted Easterling examines how well the CAPs performed as a counterinsurgency method, how the Marines adjusted to life in the Vietnamese villages, and how they worked to accomplish their mission. The CAPs generally performed their counterinsurgency role well, but they were hampered by factors beyond their control. Most important was the conflict between the Army and the Marine Corps over an appropriate strategy for the Vietnam War, along with weakness of the government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the strategic and the tactical ability of the North Vietnamese Army. War in the Villages helps to explain how and why this potential was realized and squandered. Marines who served in the CAPs served honorably in difficult circumstances. Most of these Marines believed they were helping the people of South Vietnam, and they served superbly. The failure to end the war more favorably was no fault of theirs.

As the first book to call for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, Howard Zinn's 'Vietnam' includes a powerful speech which he believed President Lyndon Johnson should have delivered to lay out the case for ending the war. Of the many books that challenged the Vietnam War, Howard Zinn's 'Vietnam' stands out as one of the greatest - and indeed the most influential. The writings in this book helped spark a national debate on the war; few aside from Zinn could reach so many with such passion and such conciseness.

Frances FitzGerald's landmark history of Vietnam and the Vietnam War, "a compassionate and penetrating account of the collision of two societies that remain untranslatable to one another." (New York Times Book Review) This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald's many years of research and travels, takes us inside the history of Vietnam -- the traditional, ancestor-worshiping villages, the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals and monks, the disruption created by French colonialism, and America's ill-fated intervention -- and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese eyes. Originally published in 1972, Fire in the Lake was the first history of Vietnam written by an American and won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award. With a clarity and insight unrivaled by any author before it or since, Frances FitzGerald illustrates how America utterly and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam.

Peter Clark's year in Vietnam began in July 1966, when he was shipped out with hundreds of other young recruits, as a replacement in the 1st Infantry Division. Clark was assigned to the Alpha Company. Clark gives a visceral, vivid and immediate account of life in the platoon, as he progresses from green recruit to seasoned soldier over the course of a year in the complexities of the Vietnamese conflict. Clark gradually learns the techniques developed by US troops to cope with the daily horrors they encountered, the technical skills needed to fight and survive, and how to deal with the awful reality of civilian casualties. Fighting aside, it rained almost every day and insect bites constantly plagued the soldiers as they moved through dense jungle, muddy rice paddy and sandy roads. From the food they ate (largely canned meatballs, beans and potatoes) to the inventive ways they managed to shower, every aspect of the platoon's lives is explored in this revealing book. The troops even managed to fit in some R&Rwhilst off-duty in the bars of Tokyo. Alpha One Sixteen follows Clark as he discovers how to cope with the vagaries of the enemy and the daily confusion the troops faced in distinguishing combatants from civilians. The Viet Cong were a largely unseen enemy who fought a guerrilla war, setting traps and landmines everywhere. Clark's vigilance develops as he gets used to 'living in mortal terror,' which a brush with death in a particularly terrifying fire fight does nothing to dispel. As he continues his journey, he chronicles those less fortunate; the heavy toll being taken all round him is powerfully described at the end of each chapter.

In 2012, President Obama announced that the United States would spend the next thirteen years - through November 11, 2025 - commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, and the American soldiers, "more than 58,000 patriots," who died in Vietnam. The fact that at least 2.1 million Vietnamese - soldiers, parents, grandparents, children - also died in that war will be largely unknown and entirely uncommemorated. And U.S. history barely stops to record the millions of Vietnamese who lived on after being displaced, tortured, maimed, raped, or born with birth defects, the result of devastating chemicals wreaked on the land by the U.S. military. The reason for this appalling disconnect of consciousness lies in an unremitting public relations campaign waged by top American politicians, military leaders, business people, and scholars who have spent the last sixty years justifying the U.S. presence in Vietnam. It is a campaign of patriotic conceit superbly chronicled by John Marciano in The American War in Vietnam: Crime or Commemoration?A devastating follow-up to Marciano's 1979 classic Teaching the Vietnam War (written with William L. Griffen), Marciano's book seeks not to commemorate the Vietnam War, but to stop the ongoing U.S. war on actual history. Marciano reveals the grandiose flag-waving that stems from the "Noble Cause principle," the notion that America is "chosen by God" to bring democracy to the world. Marciano writes of the Noble Cause being invoked unsparingly by presidents - from Jimmy Carter, in his observation that, regarding Vietnam, "the destruction was mutual," to Barack Obama, who continues the flow of romantic media propaganda: "The United States of America ...will remain the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known."The result is critical writing and teaching at its best. This book will find a home in classrooms where teachers seek to do more than repeat the trite glorifications of U.S. empire. It will provide students everywhere with insights that can prepare them to change the world.

The nationally recognized credit-by-exam DSST (R) program helps students earn college credits for learning acquired outside the traditional classroom such as; learning from on-the-job training, reading, or independent study. DSST (R) tests offer students a cost-effective, time-saving way to use the knowledge they've acquired outside of the classroom to accomplish their education goals. Peterson's (R) Master the (TM) DSST (R) A History of the Vietnam War Exam provides a general overview of the subjects students will encounter on the exam such as the roots of the Vietnam War, pre-War developments (1940-1955), American involvement in the War, Tet (1968), Cambodia, Laos and lessons following the War. This valuable resource includes: Diagnostic pre-test with detailed answer explanations Assessment Grid designed to help identify areas that need focus Subject Matter Review proving a general overview of the subjects, followed by a review of the relevant topics and terminology covered on the exam Post-test offering 60 questions all with detailed answer explanations Key information about the DSST (R) such as, what to expect on test day and how to register and prepare for the DSST (R)