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's 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's 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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