CONTENTS

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction:
The Vietnam War and Its Enduring Historical Relevance

David L. Anderson

PART I. Chronological Perspectives

1. Setting the Stage:
Vietnamese Revolutionary Nationalism and the First Vietnam War

Mark Philip Bradley

2. “Dealing with a Government of Madmen”:
Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Ngo Dinh Diem

Richard H. Immerman

3. South Vietnam Under Siege, 1961–1965:
Kennedy, Johnson, and the Question of Escalation or Disengagement

Gary R. Hess

4. Lyndon Johnson and the Bombing of Vietnam:
Politics and Military Choices

Lloyd C. Gardner

5. Turning Point:
The Vietnam War’s Pivotal Year, November 1967–November 1968

Robert J. McMahon

6. Richard M. Nixon and the Vietnam War:
The Paradox of Disengagement with Escalation

Jeffrey P. Kimball

PART II. Topical Perspectives

7. American Strategy in the Vietnam War

John Prados

8. The Village War in Vietnam, 1965–1973

Eric Bergerud

9. Fighting for Family:
Vietnamese Women and the American War

Helen E. Anderson

10. Vietnamese Society at War

Robert K. Brigham

11. “Hey, Hey, LBJ!”:
American Domestic Politics and the Vietnam War

Melvin Small

12. Cambodia and Laos in the Vietnam War

Kenton Clymer

PART III. Postwar Perspectives

13. The Legacy of the Vietnam War

Robert D. Schulzinger

14. The Vietnam Syndrome

George C. Herring

Contributors

Index