George Herring, "The Vietnam War" (1986)

The story of U.S. involvement in a war in Vietnam is a long, complex, and painful one, filled with controversy and contradiction. Even in 1993, some thirty-odd years after the U.S. started down the road to war with North Vietnam, people have strong emotions and convictions about the war. Any discussion of the war is fraught with implications about our world today. Politicians continue to use Vietnam to move the American public, either lamenting the supposed betrayal of U.S. troops by peace protestors (Reagan) or harping on service or deferment records (the Clinton issue). Every time since the Vietnam war that the U.S. has used force, at least one social critic has asked, "Is Grenada (or Panama, or Iraq, or Beirut, or Somalia) the next Vietnam?"

Still, despite the heated atmosphere, as historians we are required to understand the differences between what did happen and what should have, could have, or would have happened. George Herring's book-length study, America's Longest War (1986), is a model for the way good historians deal with hot topics like Vietnam; it is balanced, fair, and honest about its biases. This article is a condensation of Herring's larger argument, and provides an overview of the vital issues of the war.

Questions to Think About:

1) Why does George Herring call Vietnam "America's Longest War"?

2) Who "won" the war, and why? What were the United States' goals? Did the U.S. accomplish those goals? If yes, how? If not, why not?

3) What are the "lessons" of Vietnam?

4) What have been the chief difficulties of historians attempting to write about the war in Vietnam? Why does the discussion of the historiography of the war reveal so much about our politics? Why is the topic of Vietnam still so painful?

Further resources and readings:

George Herring, America's Longest War: The United States in Vietnam, 1950-1975 (1986)

Robert Divine, "Vietnam Reconsidered," Diplomatic History, vol. 12:1 (Winter 1988): 79-93.

Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (1983)

Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, The United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (1985)

Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988)

Larry Berman, Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam (1982)

Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (1995)

Stewart O'Nan, ed., The Vietnam Reader (1998)

Anthony Short, The Origins of the Vietnam War (1989)

Neil Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam (1993)

Tom Wells, The War Within: America's Battle over Vietnam (1994)

John Carlos Rowe and Rick Berg, eds., The Vietnam War and American Culture (1991)

Mark Baker, Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There (1981)

Wallace Terry, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984)

Al Santoli, Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Thirty-Three American Soldiers Who Fought It (1981)

Keith Walker, A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of Twenty-Six American Women Who Served in Vietnam (1985) Clemson University History professor Edwin Moise's Vietnam War Bibliography

Converse College professor Joe P. Dunn's "The State of the Field: How Vietnam is Being Taught" (1996)

Cultural critic Noam Chomsky's response to Robert MacNamara's In Retrospect, "Memories," from Z Magazine (July/August 1995).

Prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender for HST 622 (Cold War America), at The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York, Summer Semester 2000. Send email to lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu
Last modified: Thursday 15 June 2000.