Of all of the wars in which the U.S. has been engaged, none has been as divisive as the conflict in Vietnam. The repercussions of this unsettling episode in American history still resonate in our society. Although it ended more than 30 years ago, the Vietnam War continues to fascinate and trouble Americans. The third edition of Light at the End of the Tunnel gives a full overview of the conflict. Starting with Ho Chi Minh's revolt against the French, editor Andrew J. Rotter takes the reader through the succeeding years as scholars, government officials, journalists, and others recount the important events in the conflict and examine issues that developed during this tumultuous time. This book is essential reading for anyone who has an interest in understanding the Vietnam War. The readings in it will enlighten students about this turning point in the history of the United States and the world. The third edition includes greater coverage of the Vietnamese experience of the war and reflects the growing interest in understanding the war as an international event, not just a bilateral or trilateral conflict.

Of all of the wars in which the U.S. has been engaged, none has been as divisive as the conflict in Vietnam. The repercussions of this unsettling episode in American history still resonate in our society. Although it ended more than 30 years ago, the Vietnam War continues to fascinate and trouble Americans. The third edition of Light at the End of the Tunnel gives a full overview of the conflict. Starting with Ho Chi Minh's revolt against the French, editor Andrew J. Rotter takes the reader through the succeeding years as scholars, government officials, journalists, and others recount the important events in the conflict and examine issues that developed during this tumultuous time. This book is essential reading for anyone who has an interest in understanding the Vietnam War. The readings in it will enlighten students about this turning point in the history of the United States and the world. The third edition includes greater coverage of the Vietnamese experience of the war and reflects the growing interest in understanding the war as an international event, not just a bilateral or trilateral conflict.

The US decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 remains one of the most controversial events of the twentieth century. However, the controversy over the rights and wrongs of dropping the bomb has tended to obscure a number of fundamental and sobering truths about the development of this fearsome weapon. The principle of killing thousands of enemy civilians from the air was already well established by 1945 and had been practised on numerous occasions by both sides during the Second World War. Moreover, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was conceived and built by an international community of scientists, not just by the Americans. Other nations (including Japan and Germany) were also developing atomic bombs in the first half of the 1940s, albeit hapharzardly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any combatant nation foregoing the use of the bomb during the war had it been able to obtain one. The international team of scientists organized by the Americans just got there first. As this fascinating new history shows, the bomb dropped by a US pilot that hot August morning in 1945 was in many ways the world's offspring, in both a technological and a moral sense. And it was the world that would have to face its consequences, strategically, diplomatically, and culturally, in the years ahead.

Comrades at Odds explores the complicated Cold War relationship between the United States and the newly independent India of Jawaharlal Nehru from a unique perspective -- that of culture, broadly defined. In a departure from the usual way of doing diplomatic history, Andrew J. Rotter chose culture as his jumping-off point because, he says, "Like the rest of us, policymakers and diplomats do not shed their values, biases, and assumptions at their office doors. They are creatures of culture, and their attitudes cannot help but shape the policy they make". To define those attitudes, Rotter consults not only government documents and the memoirs of those involved in the events of the day, but also literature, art, and mass media. "An advertisement, a photograph, a cartoon, a film, and a short story", he finds, "tell us in their own ways about relations between nations as surely as a State Department memorandum does".

While expanding knowledge about the creation and implementation of democracy, Rotter carries his analysis across the categories of race, class, gender, religion, and culturally infused practices of governance, strategy, and economics.

Americans saw Indians as superstitious, unclean, treacherous, lazy, and prevaricating. Indians regarded Americans as arrogant, materialistic, uncouth, profane, and violent. Yet, in spite of these stereotypes, Rotter notes the mutual recognition of profound similarities between the two groups; they were indeed "comrades at odds".

Comrades at Odds explores the complicated Cold War relationship between the United States and the newly independent India of Jawaharlal Nehru from a unique perspective -- that of culture, broadly defined. In a departure from the usual way of doing diplomatic history, Andrew J. Rotter chose culture as his jumping-off point because, he says, "Like the rest of us, policymakers and diplomats do not shed their values, biases, and assumptions at their office doors. They are creatures of culture, and their attitudes cannot help but shape the policy they make". To define those attitudes, Rotter consults not only government documents and the memoirs of those involved in the events of the day, but also literature, art, and mass media. "An advertisement, a photograph, a cartoon, a film, and a short story", he finds, "tell us in their own ways about relations between nations as surely as a State Department memorandum does".

While expanding knowledge about the creation and implementation of democracy, Rotter carries his analysis across the categories of race, class, gender, religion, and culturally infused practices of governance, strategy, and economics.

Americans saw Indians as superstitious, unclean, treacherous, lazy, and prevaricating. Indians regarded Americans as arrogant, materialistic, uncouth, profane, and violent. Yet, in spite of these stereotypes, Rotter notes the mutual recognition of profound similarities between the two groups; they were indeed "comrades at odds".

What path led Americans to Vietnam? Why and how did the United States become involved in this conflict? Drawing on materials from published and unpublished sources in America and Great Britain, historian Andrew Rotter uncovers and analyzes the surprisingly complex reasons for America's fateful decision to provide economic and military aid to the nations of Southeast Asia in May 1950.