The Vietnam War Reexamined

An overview of the revisionist case on the Vietnam War, showing how it could have been won by the US at a lower cost than was suffered in defeat.

Michael G. Kort (Author)

9781107628175, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 December 2017

264 pages, 9 maps
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.38 kg

'In this book, Michael G. Kort ably summarizes and contrasts the orthodox and revisionist perspectives of the issues in play. In the process he makes a convincing case that US actions were consistent with its security interests during the wider Cold War, and that the Vietnam War could have been won had the US taken a different approach than the one imposed by Johnson and McNamara. This book belongs in every college course that deals with the Vietnam War.' D. M. Giangreco, author of Eyewitness Vietnam

Going beyond the dominant orthodox narrative to incorporate insight from revisionist scholarship on the Vietnam War, Michael G. Kort presents the case that the United States should have been able to win the war, and at a much lower cost than it suffered in defeat. Presenting a study that is both historiographic and a narrative history, Kort analyzes important factors such as the strong nationalist credentials and leadership qualities of South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem; the flawed military strategy of 'graduated response' developed by Robert McNamara; and the real reasons South Vietnam collapsed in the face of a massive North Vietnamese invasion in 1975. Kort shows how the US commitment to defend South Vietnam was not a strategic error but a policy consistent with US security interests during the Cold War, and that there were potentially viable strategic approaches to the war that might have saved South Vietnam.

Introduction: understanding the Vietnam War
1. The Vietnam War in history
2. Vietnam 101: origins to 1946
3. Vietnamese communism, 1920–1946
4. America comes to Vietnam, 1954–1963
5. The Americanization of the Vietnam War, 1963–1968
6. The Vietnamization of the war and the 'lost victory'
7. The Paris Peace Accords to Black April
Summary and epilogue.

Subject Areas: Diplomacy [JPSD], Military history: post WW2 conflicts [HBWS], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]