Vietnam (original 1983; edition 1985)

phenomenal, detailed, intelligent, considered, and mostly unbiased history of the country and war

Audio product here.

A rather lengthy and dense history of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. While generally chronological, there are a number of points where this is not strictly adhered to. Karnow's narrative is methodical and not stylish; on the plus side, he incorporates quotes from numerous interviews with politicians, U.S. and Vietnamese military personnel, and others.

Others' reviews are generally positive, but some fault Karnow's scholarship or perspective. I can't evaluate the legitimacy of these concerns, but can say that in relation to other histories and memoirs, Karnow appears to do a good job of representing Vietnamese as well as American accounts.

Two deficits associated with the audiobook are the obvious omission of Karnow's many photographs and the reader's frequent mispronunciations (e.g., NEE-po-tism).

Read with [b:Born on the Fourth of July|33613|Born on the Fourth of July|Ron Kovic|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168455139s/33613.jpg|33666] and [i:]A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath[/i:] or other memoirs with a military emphasis. ( )

This book represents just that - the best single volume history of the war, in my opinion. The first couple of chapters cover the early history of 'Indochina' and French colonialism, and then the rest of the text covers the history of Vietnam up to ~1980. This breadth of coverage (notably the war under Nixon) is not available in 'Bright Shining Lie' or 'Fire in the Lake' - the best of the other histories of the Vietnam war, and 'Best and the Brightest' is a political history.

The chapter structure is logical and the writing style maintained my interest throughout the book. It won the Pulitzer, so why write more? A wonderful history book. ( )

I was looking forward to reading this book and was a little disappointed. The coverage of the background to the American War and the politics of the war were very well done. I was looking for the military history of the war and did not feel that subject was covered well.
I grew up in The Vietnam era and have a fair knowledge of the subject. I also enjoyed The Best and the Brightest which provided a good coverage of the American political situation.
This book had some excellent interviews and other information from the North Vietnamese side. The author did a good job of being objective as possible. It is a good one-volume narrative of the major issues presented by the war. The military history is not very detailed and I was looking for more explanation of what happened in that area. I would recommend this book as an introduction to the war but I am going to have to look elsewhere for a good military history. ( )

This is another history written by a journalist who was covering the war while actually stationed in Vietnam, thus giving him a unique insight as opposed to a historian looking back years later. What I like most is that the author has maintained relationships with the Vietnamese military leaders he interviewed while in Southeast Asia, using more recent interviews from the 1990s of the same leaders to provide an additional historical angle in retrospect. The book covers the roots of Vietnamese nationalism throughout its long history, then the war with the French, all the while showing how the US slowly became entagled in the Vietnam quagmire. One interesting tidbit I learned was how much LBJ disliked Robert Kennedy. The first chapter reads more like a last chapter in that it looks back at what has happened in Vietnam since the war ended. But it is an excellent way to begin the book because it asks the question, whether intentionally or not, just who won and was it worth the cost? ( )