Where the Domino Fell
America and Vietnam 1945 - 2010
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- £31.99
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- £31.99
Publisher Description
This updated, expanded edition of Where the Domino Fell recounts the history of American involvement in Vietnam from the end of World War II, clarifying the political aims, military strategy, and social and economic factors that contributed to the participants' actions. Revised and updated to include an examination of Vietnam through the point of view of the soldiers themselves, and brings the story up to the present day through a look at how the war has been memorialized A final chapter examines Vietnam through the lens of Oliver Stone's films and opens up a discussion of the War in popular culture Written with brevity and clarity, this concise narrative history of the Vietnam conflict is an ideal student text A chronology, glossary, and a bibliography all serve as helpful reference points for students An important contribution not only to the study of the Vietnam War but to an understanding of the larger workings of American foreign policy
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
According to the authors of this compact history of the war and its aftermath, what began as a righteous crusade to save Southeast Asia from communism ended up as ``a face-saving game to get out of an impossible mess without looking bad.'' Olson and Roberts (history professors at Sam Houston State University in Texas and Purdue University in Indiana, respectively) chronicle the course of the first and second Indochina wars from the Vietnamese, French and American points of view, tracing the U.S. commitment from the earliest OSS aid mission in 1945 to the humiliating pullout in '73. The book is highly readable, succinct in style and full of surprises: Ho Chi Minh's prediction that Americans' inherent impatience would doom their effort in the end; reviews of postwar Vietnamese movies about the anti-imperialist struggle; an analysis of America's efforts to come to terms with the defeat in Southeast Asia as reflected in popular culture. The authors are blunt, occasionally arbitrary in their opinions, arguing, for instance, that the most effective U.S. pacification effort was the Marines' CAP program, a promising but relatively minor affair prematurely canceled. Photos.
