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

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Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright Publishing, 2020)

Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright Publishing, 2020)

William Faulkner, one of America's most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such classic novels as Absolom, Absolom! and The Sound ...

11 Mars 202250min

Michael Silvestri, "Policing ‘Bengali Terrorism’ in India and the World: Imperial Intelligence and Revolutionary Nationalism, 1905-1939" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

Michael Silvestri, "Policing ‘Bengali Terrorism’ in India and the World: Imperial Intelligence and Revolutionary Nationalism, 1905-1939" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

Policing ‘Bengali Terrorism’ in India and the World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) by Michael Silvestri examines the development of imperial intelligence and policing directed against revolutionaries in t...

8 Mars 20221h 16min

Jeremy Black, "The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: Strategies for a World War" (Roman and Littlefield, 2022)

Jeremy Black, "The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: Strategies for a World War" (Roman and Littlefield, 2022)

The wars between 1792 and 1815 saw the making of the modern world, with Britain and Russia the key powers to emerge triumphant from a long period of bitter conflict. In his innovative book, The French...

8 Mars 202233min

Daniel Chirot, "You Say You Want a Revolution?: Radical Idealism and Its Tragic Consequences" (Princeton UP, 2020)

Daniel Chirot, "You Say You Want a Revolution?: Radical Idealism and Its Tragic Consequences" (Princeton UP, 2020)

Why have so many of the iconic revolutions of modern times ended in bloody tragedies? And what lessons can be drawn from these failures today, in a world where political extremism is on the rise and r...

7 Mars 20221h 24min

Erica de De Bruin, "How to Prevent Coups D'État: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival" (Cornell UP, 2020)

Erica de De Bruin, "How to Prevent Coups D'État: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival" (Cornell UP, 2020)

Today I talked to Erica De Bruin about her book How to Prevent Coups d’état: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival (Cornell University Press, 2020). Rulers structure institutions so as to protect their...

7 Mars 202254min

Carol Berger, "The Child Soldiers of Africa's Red Army: The Role of Social Process and Routinised Violence in South Sudan's Military" (Routledge, 2022)

Carol Berger, "The Child Soldiers of Africa's Red Army: The Role of Social Process and Routinised Violence in South Sudan's Military" (Routledge, 2022)

In The Child Soldiers of Africa's Red Army: The Role of Social Process and Routinised Violence in South Sudan's Military (Routledge, 2022), Dr. Carol Berger examines the role of social process and rou...

4 Mars 202258min

Jadwiga Biskupska, "Survivors: Warsaw under Nazi Occupation" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

Jadwiga Biskupska, "Survivors: Warsaw under Nazi Occupation" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

Survivors tells the harrowing story of life in Warsaw under Nazi occupation. As the epicenter of Polish resistance, Warsaw was subjected to violent persecution, the ghettoization of the city's Jewish ...

4 Mars 202256min

Julian Stallabrass, "Killing for Show: Photography, War, and the Media in Vietnam and Iraq" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)

Julian Stallabrass, "Killing for Show: Photography, War, and the Media in Vietnam and Iraq" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)

In the autumn of 2014, the Royal Air Force released blurry video of a missile blowing up a pick-up truck that may have had a weapon attached to its flatbed. This was a lethal form of gesture politics:...

4 Mars 20221h 8min

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