Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young, “Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars” (Oxford UP, 2008)

Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young, “Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars” (Oxford UP, 2008)

What to think about the Vietnam War? A righteous struggle against global Communist tyranny? An episode in American imperialism? A civil war into which the United States blindly stumbled? And what of the Vietnamese perspective? How did they–both North and South–understand the war? Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young have assembled a crack team of historians to consider (or rather reconsider) these questions in Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Transnational and International Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). The book is part of the National History Center‘s Reinterpreting History series. The pieces in it are wide-ranging: some see the war from the heights of international diplomacy, others from the hamlets of the Mekong Delta. They introduce new themes, for example, the role of American racial stereotypes in the conflict. More than anything else, however, they are nuanced. Their authors provide no simple answers because there are none. You will not find easy explanations, good guys and bad guys, or ideological drum-beating in these pages. What you will find is a sensitive effort to understand an event of mind-boggling, irreducible complexity. There’s a lesson here: we may think we know what we are doing on far-away shores, but we are fooling ourselves. Reminds one a bit of Tolstoy’s thoughts on the philosophy of history at the end of War and Peace. Still worth a read, as is this book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Episoder(1614)

Yaakov Katz, "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" (St. Martin's Press, 2019)

Yaakov Katz, "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" (St. Martin's Press, 2019)

With the world’s attention riveted to the nuclear threat from Iran, Yaakov Katz’s new book could not be more timely. In Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power ...

19 Feb 202058min

Alex J. Kay and David Stahel, "Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe" (Indiana UP, 2018)

Alex J. Kay and David Stahel, "Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe" (Indiana UP, 2018)

Alex J. Kay (senior lecture of History at Potsdam University in Berlin) and David Stahel (senior lecturer in History at the University of New South Wales in Canberra) have edited a groundbreaking seri...

11 Feb 202042min

Megan Kate Nelson, "The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West" (Scribner, 2019)

Megan Kate Nelson, "The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West" (Scribner, 2019)

What did the American Civil War look like from Diné Bikéyah and Apacheria? This is just one of the many questions that drives historian Megan Kate Nelson’s The Three-Cornered War: The Union, The Confe...

10 Feb 20201h 12min

Howard Jones, "My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness" (Oxford UP, 2017)

Howard Jones, "My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness" (Oxford UP, 2017)

In his book My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness (Oxford UP, 2017), Dr. Howard Jones describes how on March 16th, 1968, several units of American soldiers descended upon a collection o...

7 Feb 20201h 18min

K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)

K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years working...

30 Jan 202039min

Eric Setzekor, "The Rise and Fall of an Officer Corps: The Republic of China Military, 1942-1955" (U Oklahoma Press, 2018)

Eric Setzekor, "The Rise and Fall of an Officer Corps: The Republic of China Military, 1942-1955" (U Oklahoma Press, 2018)

Following the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, two antipodal ideologies vied for control of China's military. The first, advanced by Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), maintained that the m...

30 Jan 202059min

Andrew Marble, "Boy on the Bridge: The Story of John Shalikashvili’s Remarkable Success" (UP of Kentucky, 2019)

Andrew Marble, "Boy on the Bridge: The Story of John Shalikashvili’s Remarkable Success" (UP of Kentucky, 2019)

When President Bill Clinton nominated John Shalikashvili to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993, it represented the climax of a long journey that began in waning days of the Second Wo...

21 Jan 202042min

Graham T. Clews, "Churchill’s Phoney War: A Study in Folly and Frustration" (Naval Institute Press, 2019)

Graham T. Clews, "Churchill’s Phoney War: A Study in Folly and Frustration" (Naval Institute Press, 2019)

Given the overwhelming amount of books printed in the past ten years on various (usually rather obscure) aspects of Sir Winston Churchill’s glorious career, it is of great interest that so little has ...

13 Jan 20201h

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