Three major chroniclers of the Vietnam War served as journalists in Vietnam during the period of the war. David Halberstam is the most ideological engaged. Neil Sheehan is the most detailed from the perspective of the officers and men fighting the war. and Stanley Karnow is the most comprehensive. Karnow provides a survey of Vietnamese history and the arrival of the French, which serves as a serviceable context for the introduction of American soldiers and politicians into the area in the 1950s and 1960s.

For the most part, this is a balanced and fair book. Karnow dissects the American failures, especially by the upper echelon, Johnson, Rostow, Acheson, Westmoreland, and later Nixon and Kissinger. Again, he is fair, albeit deservedly critical, particularly of Johnson, whose dithering, indecisiveness, and utter incapability of understanding a foreign culture locked the US into taking one misstep after another.

On the other hand, Karnow is weakest in his discussion of the North Vietnamese Communist leadership. His history of Ho Chi Minh's is concise and accurate. But he doesn't give full enough credit to Le Duan's leadership role, especially early on in the 1960s, when Ho was consigned to the position of a figurehead. In his favor, Karnow does treat Communist attestations with the skepticism they deserve (unlike Sheehan, who is often apt to take their word at full value). And his post war interviews of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong veterans gives good insight not only into their motivations but also their inherent differences and distrust of each other, especially among Viet Cong (NLF) veterans native to the south.

In short, read Karnow for a comprehensive history of Vietnam as well as the best understanding of American political maneuvering during the war. Read Sheehan for a detailed picture through the eyes of the men who fought the war at ground level. ( )

Very good for the lead up to the war and the history of Vietnam, sets the context of the war nicely. However in a 600 page book less than 200 pages are on the period after 1965. It is solid when it comes to political and diplomatic efforts, but next to nothing on the actual fighting. The author does a good job of looking at the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese (too often ignored) and the Americans and their viewpoints. ( )

5209. Vietnam A History, by Stanley Karnow (read 16 Oct 2014) This book was published in 1983 and is a full history of Vietnam from 1945 to April 1975, when the government we spent so many millions propping up fell. It is a sad story and while my reading was admiratory of the way Karnow tells the story it is a dolorous story, with no American president coming out as a farseeing and wise man. Sometimes the account is not organized as well as one would want, with the story dropping back and forth. ( )

phenomenal, detailed, intelligent, considered, and mostly unbiased history of the country and war

Audio product here.

A rather lengthy and dense history of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. While generally chronological, there are a number of points where this is not strictly adhered to. Karnow's narrative is methodical and not stylish; on the plus side, he incorporates quotes from numerous interviews with politicians, U.S. and Vietnamese military personnel, and others.

Others' reviews are generally positive, but some fault Karnow's scholarship or perspective. I can't evaluate the legitimacy of these concerns, but can say that in relation to other histories and memoirs, Karnow appears to do a good job of representing Vietnamese as well as American accounts.

Two deficits associated with the audiobook are the obvious omission of Karnow's many photographs and the reader's frequent mispronunciations (e.g., NEE-po-tism).

Read with [b:Born on the Fourth of July|33613|Born on the Fourth of July|Ron Kovic|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168455139s/33613.jpg|33666] and [i:]A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath[/i:] or other memoirs with a military emphasis. ( )

This book represents just that - the best single volume history of the war, in my opinion. The first couple of chapters cover the early history of 'Indochina' and French colonialism, and then the rest of the text covers the history of Vietnam up to ~1980. This breadth of coverage (notably the war under Nixon) is not available in 'Bright Shining Lie' or 'Fire in the Lake' - the best of the other histories of the Vietnam war, and 'Best and the Brightest' is a political history.

The chapter structure is logical and the writing style maintained my interest throughout the book. It won the Pulitzer, so why write more? A wonderful history book. ( )

I was looking forward to reading this book and was a little disappointed. The coverage of the background to the American War and the politics of the war were very well done. I was looking for the military history of the war and did not feel that subject was covered well.
I grew up in The Vietnam era and have a fair knowledge of the subject. I also enjoyed The Best and the Brightest which provided a good coverage of the American political situation.
This book had some excellent interviews and other information from the North Vietnamese side. The author did a good job of being objective as possible. It is a good one-volume narrative of the major issues presented by the war. The military history is not very detailed and I was looking for more explanation of what happened in that area. I would recommend this book as an introduction to the war but I am going to have to look elsewhere for a good military history. ( )

This is another history written by a journalist who was covering the war while actually stationed in Vietnam, thus giving him a unique insight as opposed to a historian looking back years later. What I like most is that the author has maintained relationships with the Vietnamese military leaders he interviewed while in Southeast Asia, using more recent interviews from the 1990s of the same leaders to provide an additional historical angle in retrospect. The book covers the roots of Vietnamese nationalism throughout its long history, then the war with the French, all the while showing how the US slowly became entagled in the Vietnam quagmire. One interesting tidbit I learned was how much LBJ disliked Robert Kennedy. The first chapter reads more like a last chapter in that it looks back at what has happened in Vietnam since the war ended. But it is an excellent way to begin the book because it asks the question, whether intentionally or not, just who won and was it worth the cost? ( )

An extensive and intelligent history of the Vietnam. Chapters are devoted to almost every aspect of the war from origins to the bitter end. ( )

A fascinating history of a troubled region of the world. Karnow bends over backwards to present an unbiased description of the US involvement in Vietnam. The interesting thing to me was the historical background that should have clued American decision-makers into the nearly impossible task they were undertaking in trying to impose their influence upon Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh is certainly presented in an admirable if not heroic way. The privations and misery he put himself (and his people) through in the cause of his nation's freedom are astonishing. In addition to in-depth and on-the-ground experience in Vietnam, Karnow also had access to the highest levels of US government. His descriptions of the tortured decision-making in the Johnson administration are disheartening, to say the least. Karnow's interviews with key leaders of Vietnam many years after the war's conclusion also provide valuable insight into how bad the war really was for the Vietnamese in the north as well as the south. Edward Holland's narration of this CD Audiobook version was very good, although I did detect an occasional example of non-standard English pronunciation. I gave him the benefit of the doubt for all of the Vietnamese names and words as well as the extensive French words and phrases. ( )

This is a book you wish Bush 43 had read somewhere along the line. The author believes that we made every mistake possible. Vietnam did not want to be taken over again by China, and nationalism not communism waws driving so many citizens there. Well written. What is most interesting is the fact the author was there most of the time, from 1950 forward in France to start. He was assigned to write about Ho in 1954. There are videos to go with the book. ( )

Sometimes your reading is chosen by your travels. This is one of them. A recent trip through South East Asia inspired me to read Vietnam: A History; searching through the many tomes on the Vietnam War in Foyles bookshop in London, I decided after much internal debate on picking up this hefty (and expensive) volume.

It was a good choice: engagingly written and bringing to life the main political and military leaders on both sides of this terrible conflict, Stanley Karnow writes an historical narrative that is also a page turner. He is well qualified to do so being throughout a correspondent in South East Asia. This is history concentrated on the power elites rather then the experiences of the ordinary American GI or Vietcong fighter and this is its weakness. But at the end you get a fuller understanding, if it is ever possible to get an understanding, of the insanity of the Vietnam War. ( )

The definitive text on the Viet Nam war. ( )

"I undertook this book with no cause to plead...My general attitude...has been one of humility in the face of a vast and complicated subject".
The author is a Harvard graduate writing the "first history of the Vietnam War" as a journalist.

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