Edward Doyle (1) (1949–)

A Collision of Cultures covers the less well-known aspects of the Vietnam War. The civilian aid effort, support troops, the black market, life in Saigon and in the countryside, as well as the deterioration in military morale that lead to My Lai and other atrocities. This book is clear-headed and hard-hitting, exposing how the surge of American money corroded South Vietnam, replacing a sustainable civilian economy and turning the people into a nation of bar girls and shoe-shine boys. Military show more policy aimed to separate the troops from the people in order to prevent friction, but result was that fast, hostile encounters, from petty theft and abuse to all-out combat, continued while any chance for friendship and mutual respect was cut short. Cultural and language training was almost non-existent, making aid efforts random shots in the dark. In the environment, the "gook mentality" demonized the Vietnamese people, leading America to ask what they were fighting for. show less

Now we're getting into the meat of the war. 1965-967 covers the most optimistic period of the war, when American ground troops decisively defeated Viet Cong units, but America had not yet lost it's war. The series continues to provide invaluable details and anecdotes about the war, such as the flamboyant Premier Ky, Marine General Lewis Walt taking a bridge from Buddhist rebels, the Fulbright hearings, strategic debates in Hanoi, and the heroism of American soldiers, sailors, and medics, show more fighting along the DMZ and in the Delta.

Along with this micro-level story-telling, this section provides a clearheaded look at the totality of the American defeat. The numerous pacification plans were failures, never executed with enough knowledge, resources, or persistence. Militarily, the big war put the American strategy of attritting the VC against Giap's strategy of attritting the American will to fight. The war was casualties against time, but since the VC controlled the tempo of the war, they could ensure their losses were bearable simply by delaying action. According to US military statistics, 50% of combat encounters in Vietnam were ambushes, and 88% were initiated by the enemy. These defeats might have been acceptable if they covered for successful nation-building, but on the whole, battles simply forced the civilian population into refugee camps, straining the economy and the political system of the South. show less

I picked up this entire series at a used book sale, so there'll be a lot of these reviews. Setting the Stage covers everything from the dawn of history to the end of WW2, and does a great job putting the Vietnam War in the context of Vietnam's centuries-long struggle against foreign domination, both Chinese and French, and the ageless conflicts of the rural peasant over land and taxes. The evils of French colonialism are explored in detail; the topheavy and ineffective French colonial show more bureaucracy extracted every bit of wealth from the land, while a new class of Vietnamese interpreters and cultural agents made themselves wealthy through corrupt business dealings. However, the rise of the Nationalist and Communist movements in the 1930s only gets a few chapters, along with the biographies of major figures. Perhaps the next book has more detail. show less

Fighting for Time covers the period of Vietnamization in 1969 and 1970 as the Nixon administration tried to salvage something from the war. This book covers many topics: Cambodian neutrality and the Cambodian incursion, My Lai and the degeneration in military moral, political reform in South Vietnam and the death of Ho Chi Minh in the North. But with that breadth comes a lack of a coherent narrative or a critical analysis of these important historical events. This book manages a basic 'just show more the facts' reporting, but feels less complete and polished than previous books in the series. show less