Stephen Weiss

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

Ah, 1968: or the Year that Everything went from SNAFU to FUBAR.

'68 was undoubtably a pivotal year in the war. The Tet offensive shattered the illusion that America was winning, but also decimated the National Liberation Front. From now on, North Vietnamese forces would do much of the fighting in the South. The Anti-war movement went mainstream, the consequences of which still echo in today's politics. LBJ decided not to run for reelection, Martin Lurther King and Bobby Kennedy were show more assassinated, the Chicago Democratic Convention saw a 'police riot', and Richard Nixon was elected. The Paris Peace Talks began, and spent months arguing about the shape of the table.

But for all the pivotal quality of the events of 1968, this book doesn't do an amazing job explaining what changed after Tet. This series has been at its best with the little details and anecdotes that manage to bring the war alive, and unlike the rest of the series, 1968 is rather thin on the details, preferring broad generalities.

An interesting book, but a weak point in the series, and there are almost certainly better works on the Tet offensive and the American protest movement. show less

#3 in the linear foot of Vietnam War. "Raising the Stakes" covers the period between the downfall of the Deim regime starting in 1962, and the deployment of the Marines in 1965. While raising the stakes gives a good overview of the period, as always, this is one of the most studied periods of the war, because it was the last real chance to avoid the full-blown quagmire that the war became. What I mean by this is that there are probably specialty books that cover the most interesting parts of show more this period: "Dereliction of Duty" for the view from DC, "A Bright Shining Lie" for the Battle of Ap Bac and the downfall of Diem, and military histories for the air war and special forces.

What this book covers in detail are the immediate post-Diem chaos, with coup after coup (normally just glossed over until Ky and Thieu in many books), the failures of the Diem regime, and the various special forces units. However, I would have preferred a tighter focus on Diem, or the policy-makers in DC who set the war on it's course. show less

"Passing the Torch" the First Indo-China war, the rise of Ho Chi Minh in the north, and Nguyen Ngo Diem in the south, and the early commitment of the Kennedy administration to the war. This last section is covered more fully in other books in the series, and as a survivor of Bob Brigham Vietnam War history class, I can say that the Indo-China War and political developments in Vietnam are covered in a comprehensive and balanced way. Another great addition to the series.