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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.7043373
EAN: 9780684870274
ISBN: 0684870274
Label: Free Press
Manufacturer: Free Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: July 02, 2002
Publisher: Free Press
Studio: Free Press
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
This original and provocative book is certain to raise emotions. Its justification of America's war in Southeast Asia directly contradicts other recent studies, such as Fredrik Logevall's Choosing War and Robert S. McNamara's Argument Without End. Michael Lind, Washington Editor for Harper's magazine, examines the American military response to North Vietnamese aggression; American credibility during the cold war; domestic politics; and constitutional aspects of the conflict. He places the war's center of gravity in American public opinion rather than in the population of South Vietnam or the North Vietnamese army. In doing so, he can be blunt, as when he claims that members of the Western left who made excuses for the North Vietnamese land-reform terror were "apologists for state-sponsored genocide." One of his conclusions is that if the United States is to continue to be the dominant world power, "then American soldiers must learn to swim in quagmires." Viewing America's Southeast Asian adventure in the context of the cold war, Lind regards it not as a crime, betrayal, or tragic error, but as an unavoidable confrontation. Whether you agree with his arguments, Vietnam: The Necessary War intelligently, often vehemently, challenges preconceptions that surround the most controversial military conflict in American history. --John Stevenson
Product Description:
What went wrong in Vietnam?
Michael Lind casts new light on one of the most contentious episodes in American history in this controversial bestseller.
In this groundgreaking reinterpretation of America's most disatrous and controversial war, Michael Lind demolishes enduring myths and put the Vietnam War in its proper context -- as part of the global conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lind reveals the deep cultural divisions within the United States that made the Cold War consensus so fragile and explains how and why American public support for the war in Indochina declined. Even more stunning is his provacative argument that the United States failed in Vietnam because the military establishment did not adapt to the demands of what before 1968 had been largely a guerrilla war.
In an era when the United States often finds itself embroiled in prolonged and difficult conflicts in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Iraq, Lind offers a sobering cautionary tale to Ameicans of all political viewpoints.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Initially I liked this book because it does have some different viewpoints from the standard anti-American liberal take on the Vietnam War. But I really disagree with the premise that the war had to be fought to maintain American prestige. If we had never gone to Vietnam in the first place there would have been no need to save face. It is simple as that.
I also disagree with the premise that we could not have won the war. I am no expert, but I think we lost the Vietnam war because ... Read More
Rating:  -
This man is such an idiot!!! I am a college student taking a Vietnam Era class and I have read many books and documents on the different aspects of the Vietnam War most of which are excellent but this by far is absolute junk. The only reason I finished the book was because I had a research paper to do. This book make conjectures that are so far fetched that you can not even argue them because you are too busy scratching you head. A big one that stands out is when he says that the domino theory is ... Read More
Rating:  -
Lind is a provocative, engaging, and also infuriating writer. In this book on the American experience in Vietnam, he offers up a new take strategy and the balance of power in the Cold War that is extremely different. The United States had to fight in Vietnam and lose (although winning would have been preferable) to prove that its word had meaning and that the allies could count on their American friends. "It was necessary for the United States to escalate the war in the mid-1960s in order to defend ... Read More
Rating: -
Michael Lind has to be either the leading American intellectual alive or, a close competitor for that honor. With this lucid book, I was more than persuaded - indeed swept - into giving credence to Lind's arguments about the importance of the American involvement in Vietnam. Mr Lind draws from many sources in order to bolster his artfully weaved thesis. This book has history, analysis, and even some conjectures that are highly plausible. I am sure this book will become the standard against which ... Read More
Rating: -
Lind's total lack of intellectual honesty produced in this "reinterpretation" of the Vietnam war is breathtaking. David Halberstam was in Vietnam. Where was Lind? David Halberstam interviewed the people who were key decision-makers. Lind debunking Halberstam? Hah!
His arguments ring hollow as he tries without success, not merely to reintrpret or revise the history of the Vietnam War, but to rewrite in the face of facts that do not justify his arguments.
His "reinterpretations" ... Read More
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