I am looking for a book about the History of the Vietnam War.?

Question

I want something that is easy to read. I need just the history, not the politics, one side or the other, about whether or not we should have been there. I would like to learn about the sequence of events that led us to intervene. It was an interesting part of history that I lived through, although I was a child and then teenager during that time, so I was not really interested then. Now, I am a conservative adult who doesn't necessarily think that we should have gone. So, in learning about the history that led up to the war, perhaps I can understand it all.

Thanks in advance,
krazy4kix

Answer 1

two books I liked were:

"America's Longest War", by George C. Herring and

"Sacred War. Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam", by William J. Duiker

Answer 2

For an Australian look at things, a good book is The Battle Of Long Tan and Beyond, by Charles S Mollison. Tells the story of Alpha Coy 6RAR in 1966-67. Everything in this book comes from soldiers in the Australian Army, serving at that time in various Companies.

An American look at things in a rather pesimistic way is Vietnam A War Lost And Won, by Nigel Cawthorne. That has lots of interesting stats.

Answer 3

I have not read such a book but I read a lot of books written at the time, and they are not what you want. The key period was between the end of the Korean war and the fall of the Diem government in 1963. After that we were trapped as we are now in Iraq. Recently documents have been released and passions have cooled so maybe such a book is out their now, several new book have been published on the run up to the war.

Answer 4

A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo

We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang--The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore

Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow

Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Da Capo Paperback) by Bernard B. Fall

I found these listed as the top 10 books on Vietnam from Amazon.com I picked a few but its up to you to choose.

But they might focus on the politics of the war but I'll list them anyway.