About the Book

When looking back at the long history of United States involvement in Vietnam, many have asked the question “Why were we there?” There have been a number of answers; a U.S. presence in Vietnam was instrumental in opening up trade for Japan, creating a more capitalist world after 1945, and even stabilizing France during World War II. Of course, as war dragged on and more and more Americans were wounded or killed, many felt that there was no possible justification for the horrors taking place in this small Southeast Asian country.

Marilyn Young’s award-winning The Vietnam Wars does not so much address the question of why we were in Vietnam, instead focusing on the question of how. How did we get there? How did we keep expanding the war? And how did we finally manage to get out? The Vietnam Wars is a comprehensive, balanced view of our troubled history with Vietnam, one that is vividly echoed in world events today.

Marilyn Young is a professor of history at New York University. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. at Harvard University, and her B.A. at Vassar College. She is the author of many books, including Rhetoric of Empire: American China Policy, 1895-1901, Transforming Russia and China: Revolutionary Struggle in the 20th century (with William Rosenberg), and Promissory Notes: Women and the Transition to Socialism (with Rayna Rapp and Sonia Kruks). She was awarded the Berkshire Women’s History Prize for The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990.

“This is the history of the war in Vietnam we have been waiting for. This is a marvelous achievement — meticulously documented, excitingly narrated, written with grace, wit, and passion.” — Howard Zinn

Critical Praise

"A first-rate synthesis of the vast literature on the Vietnam War which effectively interweaves U.S. involvement in Indochina with relevant developments on the American domestic front in a way that makes both more understandable." — George McT. Kahin, Cornell University

"Eloquent . . . A concise and effective exposition of the events of the war, and a cogent analysis of the motives underlying America's decision to make war against Vietnam.'" — Kirkus Reviews

"It is a marvelously wide-ranging and lively synthesis--unmatched in its striking juxtaposition of the Vietnamese revolution with American (old War policy and ideology and in its sensitivity to the human dimensions of the conflict on both sides. This engaged and engaging study deserves a place at the top of everyone's Vietnam reading list." — Michael H. Hunt, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"This is the history of the war in Vietnam we have been waiting for. This is a marvelous achievement--meticulously documented, excitingly narrated, written with grace, wit, and passion." — Howard Zinn

"This story, 'The Vietnam Wars,' this terrible history is told with such clarity and passion, detail, intelligence it's hard to stop reading. The tension in the writing keeps your sadness in some kind of check as you read about opportunities for peace lost again and again, and think of today's newspapers and how we are, with some differences, modification, and more firepower, once again half the world away confusing credibility with honor." — Grace Paley

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Product Details

• ISBN: 9780060921071
• ISBN 10: 0060921072
• Imprint: Harper Perennial
• On Sale: 09/25/1991
• Trimsize: 5.310 in (w) x 8.000 in (h) x 1.010 in (d)
• Pages: 448
• List Price: $18.99
• BISAC1 : HISTORY / Asia / General
• BISAC2 : HISTORY / Military / Vietnam War
• BISAC3 : HISTORY / Military / United States
• BISAC4 : HISTORY / United States / 20th Century
• BISAC5 : HISTORY / Modern / General
• BISAC6 : HISTORY / Asia / Southeast Asia