Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow

I am taking a quick detour from the usual fiction books I usually blog about. I guess that US involvement in Vietnam has always been an interest to me because it effected my parent's lives so much. In undergrad I took a course on the subject to better understand what had happened. The main text was this book, Vietnam: A History.

Karnow begins his history of Vietnam with the history of the region when it was called Cochinchina by European explorers. Then through the French war, to finally focus on the United States' involvement with the region. It is a fascinating look at the country and the politics of the time for any of us who did not live through it (or did, but were too young to remember).

This time period was a very educational one in US history. However, my professor would ask, did the US learn anything? There were things learned in WWII and Korea that should have logically lead to much different policy decisions. It was a time of great turmoil in our country and obviously in Vietnam and its surrounding countries.

The book is a valuable read for anyone even remotely interested in our current political climate. It is easy to read with many first-hand accounts from people on both sides of the fighting, people at all levels of the military, and the government.

Karnow, Stanley. (1991). Vietnam: A history (revised & updated). New York: Penguin Books.