The American War: Vietnam 1960-1975

by Jonathan Neale

The war in Indochina as seen by those who fought on both sides.

This latest addition to The New Press's People's History series offers an incisive account of the war America lost, from the perspective of those who opposed it on both sides of the battlefront as well as on the homefront.

The protagonists in Neale's history of the "American War" (as the Vietnamese refer to it) are common people struggling to shape the outcome of events unfolding on an international stage —American foot soldiers who increasingly opposed American military policy on the ground in Vietnam, local Vietnamese activists and guerrillas fighting to build a just society, and the American civilians who mobilized to bring the war to a halt.

His narrative includes vivid, first-person commentary from the ordinary men and women whose collective actions resulted in the defeat of the world's most powerful military machine. 11 black-and-white photographs.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, War, American, Historical

235 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Dr Janice Flux · Rating 2 out of 5]

i had such high hopes for this book, many of which are based in the fact that though the vietnam war and its mythology hung heavy over the culture of my country during my childhood, most of my knowledge of the war was from either hollywood movies or narratives of resistance back home. i didn't know as much as i wanted to about the historical background that led up to the war, nor about other forms of resistance beyond the (mostly) white, (mostly) middle class perspectives of the protest movement of 1960's america, which were so easy to find in my formative years. i also felt i was missing a lot of historical detail about specific incidents that occurred during the war.

rather, i should say i didn't think i knew as much as i wanted to about the historical background that led up to the war, because it turns out i had gleaned most of the knowledge necessary to understand, i just hadn't constructed it in a fashion easy for me to comprehend. this book helped me do that, especially the first section focusing on the vietnamese up to the war, and also helped fill in a few of the blanks. for that it was appreciated.

the first speed bump i hit was in this section, though. the author fully warns the reader that, due to the complicated nature of his argument, he will use simple language to make it clear. maybe it's because i have to correct so much writing at various levels of English ability that i tend to notice when the structure has been simplified to the point of absurdity. one paragraph on page 19 has the following repetitious structure in each sentence: "This produced ... They were ... They hated ... They wanted ... They saw ... They were ... They were... " With every "They" i grew more annoyed. Maybe i'm nitpicking, but i think it's possible to simplify without losing the small amount of structural complexity necessary to avoid ending up with a repetitive string of facts.

But that was just a mild annoyance. what really got to me about this book were blanket statements about conclusions and vague references to events that should have been filled in in detail. an example of the latter, from page 66:
" ... the Pentagon staged a phony incident in the Gulf of Tonkin between American naval ships and North Vietnamese gunboats. On that basis, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution saying the president could do more or less what he wanted in Indochina."

this is the only reference in the book to the gulf of tonkin. this was a decisive point in the history of the war and i still know nothing about it. except that it was phony. and apparently that it was decisive.

but what really got to me were all these interesting conclusions thrown about with no evidence to back them up. for example, page 139 strongly states that all resistance worldwide in the year 1968, from France to the US to the Czech republic to Pakistan and beyond, "had all started with [the] Tet [offensive], with a world seeing that America, the greatest power on earth, could be defeated."

it's possible, but there is absolutely no evidence presented that Tet, the first televised humiliation of the US during the war, was directly responsible for what was happening in, say, the communist bloc, or in the middle east. he provides ample evidence and analysis of what it did to citizens of the US, but none to support this wider assumption. this discounts local struggles, histories, customs, situations. it's pompous and western-centric to declare such things without some proof, or at least some discussion of where the idea came from.

other such statements include the assertion that martin luther king's speech against the overwhelming number of blacks being used as cannon fodder was directly responsible for the generals pulling black men out of combat (p 129); that "like many other governments, what the khmer rouge leaders feared the most were communists," which is strange, considering that the khmer rouge WERE the communists (p 202); that after the iranian revolution, "many educated young women in the Middle East ... put on a headscarf to show their opposition to all established society" (ALL ESTABLISHED SOCIETY?) (p 223), and that "the U.S. government reacted to their humiliation in Iran with a campaign to whip up anti-Muslim prejudice that lasted for the next twenty years. (p 224)"

that last one is tricky. i personally don't doubt that anti-muslim prejudice was systematic and systemic and planned, but i need some goddamn proof, especially if you are going to link it directly to the iranian revolution and the hostage situation. his only proof is another blanket assertion that american newspaper articles are anti-muslim. this does not prove to me that this prejudice was thought up or even a campaign from the highest levels of government, just that it had a detrimental effect on journalism.

as well, there is a whole section where he talks about the aftermath of vietnam, and how it resulted in the US government avoiding sending ground troops into any foreign conflicts, something called the "vietnam syndrome." he presents five situations where the US resorted to bombing and other forms of weaponry, or did not follow through on possible outcomes, due to the fear of sending actual soldiers into combat. leaving aside the simplified assertion that saddam was not removed after desert storm because of this syndrome, the author does not even reference countless conflicts in the 80s and 90s where troops were sent, or where the reader might be interested in knowing whether or not troops were sent. some come to mind: grenada, honduras, panama, the phillippines, somalia, haiti, east timor, etc, etc.

in fact, the book was written on the eve of the invasion of iraq in 2003, so to speak, so there are some assumptions about what is to come that, though interesting, are completely unnecessary.

so i was annoyed and angered before i got to the assertion that "many of the protesters in Seattle were the children of parents who protested in the 1960s. It was only natural to pick up where their parents left off." as a member of that generation whose parents supposedly protested in the 1960s, i and many people i know were nihilistic about protest, about our voices, about the very idea of survival. what the fuck's the point if we're all going to die in a nuclear fireball and it doesn't fucking do anything, anyway? this feeling was always reinforced with, and somewhat contradicted by, the undercurrent of thought imposed upon us that nothing we did was ever going to be as meaningful or special or perfect as "our parents' protest." we grew up thinking we could die at any minute. the struggle to get past that and to see a world we wanted to create was very much our own.

this may just be my own baggage that i am bringing to this, but i think it demonstrates a deep simplification of many difficult subjects, indicative of why this book is such a disappointment. there is some interesting history and he makes a few good points, but so much seems to be pulled out of the air, or only based on other people's work. for example, while discussing a peasant protest in 1992, he states "this is an extreme example and we do not know what happened next." (p 215). why the fuck not? because the essay you quoted doesn't mention what happened next? go find out, goddammit.

the discussion of what the war means for the present and the future is the most problematic aspect, as he is trying to discuss 30 years of history in many different countries in a very short span of time. perhaps it would have been best to keep the focus on the war itself. in fact, the most thrilling part for me was to learn about the rebellion in the armed forces, how there were underground publications on the army bases, how soldiers refused to fight and even murdered officers who tried to push them into combat. the discussion of the "vets being spit on by protesters" myth was particularly interesting, wrapped, as it is, in the discussion of how perceptions of what happened were created after the fact. the systematic creation of blame that was placed on soldiers for the failure of the war is particularly heartbreaking, and compelling. this sort of information is necessary, i think, to the discussion of a people's history of this war, even though it comes after the war ended. the WTO and anti-capitalist protest is not necessary to this discussion and fractures the focus, even though the point he is trying to make is that there are lessons to be learned in all of these aspects of history. yes, there are, but perhaps that should be taken up in another book.

there was enough new information to warrant two stars, but this book made me annoyed and angry and i had to force myself to finish it.

and it doesn't even have a goddamn map of vietnam.

[Bob Schmitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

What an annoying book. I had read and enjoyed Zinn's book "The Peoples History of the United States" and figured this one would give another view of the war in Vietnam than the standard. I was sorely disappointed. Whereas Zinn's book was thoughtful and well documented and when it described things that I knew about it was very accurate, Neale's book is a bunch of predetermined conclusions based on his own prejudices (Troskyite) and backed up by anecdotes if anything. That this book was rated by others on average as 4.02 is evidence or the lack of clear thinking out there.

Neale says such things as "in the North the bombing particularly concentrated on hospitals, schools and churches." And then sites the numbers of each destroyed. This assertion is not supported anywhere else I have ever read and not supported here and it is ridiculous on it's face. "The bombing of North Vietnam was the most dangerous job an American could do in Viet Nam." More dangerous than walking point in the Mekong Delta?

He sites a macabre air force song as evidence of the cruelty of the US airmen. What soldiers don't have gruesome songs or sayings. He tells stories of kind female Vietnamese soldiers not shooting GI's who are reading letters from home as proof that the VC are more humane but does not tell stories (anecdotes all) about GI's who not shoot female Viet Cong soldiers as I read elsewhere.

Neale sites movies and novels for evidence of certain of his claims even while acknowledging that they are fiction. Please. He says things like "I suspect that many of these people were middle and upper class students." This kind of documentation would not pass a high school teachers critique.

And then the coup de gras for me. Neal describes a the post Viet Nam treatment of a single soldier for PTSD as the patient being split between his sexual and aggressive side and feeling guilty about some atrocity he committed. The treatment is that they must return to that time and admit that they wanted to do evil. I am a MD, (not a psychiatrist) but this citing of the anecdotal treatment of one GI and expanding that to all GI's is absurd.

I am not a Viet Nam war fan. I think it was a terrible mistake, feel sick about the death and destruction caused by the US invasion and acknowledge that US policy and soldiers did many horrible things and committed atrocities and war crimes. I just like to read non-fiction based on facts and clear reasoning. I don't necessarily disagree with many Neale's conclusions, I am just nauseated by his reasoning.

Neale ends up with his vision of the future a mashing together of disparate problems and protests jammed into a Trotkskyism theme. Neale had written eleven plays, 3 novels and 4 non-fiction books. He should stick to plays and novels.

[Grigory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather an interesting book really. It was rightfully criticized for lacking sources and evidence of the things that the author tries to prove, but if you treat as a point of view, then it's fine.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The war in Iraq and September 11th probably will be the defining event of the youth of the United States today when we look back in a few decades, in much the same way the war in Vietnam defined a generation of youth in the 1960s and 1970s. In a war that ended place a decade before most of those youth were born, what lessons can we take back? How exactly did the Vietnamese win? What were the social movements in the US that arose out of this conflict? Why are the myths of the American-Vietnamese War?

The trick to understanding a lot of history is that a lot of what was taught us growing up was simply wrong and just a particular point of view. "A People's History of the Vietnam War", by Jonathan Neale, does a fantastic job of presenting an excellent history that skips over the usual hoop-la about certain elite leaders of the war, and instead concentrates on a more systematic analysis of the war that took so many millions of lives. He sees the world in terms of class and therefore argues that the American ruling class got into Vietnam as a continuation of their policies aiming at domination of the globe. They needed to save South Vietnam, which was about a brutal a dictatorship as there gets, in order to shore up their support of other dictators throughout the world.

At the same time, he doesn't commit the same blunder that many other left-wing historians make in supporting elite cadre of the Communist Party either. He correctly identifies that the majority of the party leadership were the sons and daughters of the ruling landlord class, and though they wanted a better world and sought to destroy the class of their ancestors, they also made sure that they, the CP, stayed on as rulers. They did lead a mass mobilization of peasants which liberated their land and carried out a revolution, and life was much better under the CP than it was under the French, but at the same time as Vietnam liberalizes its economy, it is the Party which mainly benefits from it.

Neale makes a pretty convincing argument that three main factors led to the defeat of the United States military in Vietnam by the Vietnamese forces. 1) The main one was the peasants revolt, led by the Communists and guerillas, in which hundreds of thousands of fighters gave their lives to bring a new future to their country. Millions of peasants died in bombings, slaughters, and executions, but they never gave up. When the Viet Cong (the South Vietnamese guerrilla group) was nearly annihilated following the Tet offensive and Operation Phoenix by US special forces, North Vietnamese units filled the void and gave everything until the truce of 1973 five years later. By the time of that truce, the guerrillas of the south and soldiers of the north were completely exhausted.


for the rest of the review:
http://www.woodenshoebooks.com/review...

[Lisa Dyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will not pretend to be an expert on political history - I never studied history at highschool, and I regret that.

As an ex-pat living in Vietnam, I wanted to understand the 'American War' as it is called here. I needed to know why it happened, what happened and how this has effected Vietnam and the World.

This book gives an excellent overview of the War. Jonathan Neale writes in easy to understand language, often pausing the story to review and summarise the important points.

He covers all sides: The French Rule; the Battle between the North and South; the reasons behind the American Intervention; the plight of the guerillas; the plight of the US Soldiers; the peace movement; the affect on bordering Cambodia. He also follows up with the wave of repercussions post-war and how the 'Vietnam Syndrome' still affects US decisions today (such as the War on Terror).

While I would not say that the book is without bias, I now have a much clearer understanding of the history of the Vietnam War from both sides.

[* · Rating 4 out of 5]

No longer using this website, but I'm leaving up old reviews. Fuck Jeff Bezos. Find me on LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/profile/...

The author is part of the International Socialist Organization, and so his whitewash of Leninist Russia in the first chapter is totally ahistorical. He does not give the Vietnamese Communist Party the same kidglove treatment, however; the criticism is deserved and fair.

The book's strong points lie in the description of everyday life for a Viet Cong guerilla, and the resistance to the war within the United States. Shockingly, the author gives credit to anarchists in the US where it is due (in the creation of coffee shops, in "salting" the military to organize, and in fomenting mutiny), something ISO folks rarely do.

[Minh Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read several books about the Vietnam War and most of them are often one-sided and sometimes biased. This book, by far, is the most objective point of view I've come across. Jonathan Neale recounted the war with an unique perspective: instead of Vietnam vs America or Communism vs Imperialism, it's the struggle of the working class and the destitute in a conflict that they did not want any part of but were nevertheless pit against each other by the ruling classes on both sides. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about the Vietnam War.

[kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you've always wanted to understand what was really wrong with the vietnam war, read this. it's the vietnam war from the perspective of the vietnamese and americans in vietnam...hence, the title.

the book is short, but neale's writing style is extremely concise, so you should read it with care. every paragraph is packed with information and there's nothing boring about it at all. i want to read it again.

[bunting · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has a lot of potential, just sorely misses an editor. Both for basic structure, as well as overarching build. The last chapter was interesting, but seemed incredibly out of place, and an opportunity for the author to blatantly post his views.

The lack of editing and scores of opinions make this book less credible, and that's a shame, because these are things that need to be talked about.

[Basil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this very interesting to learn the story of the Vietnamese war and what happened in it. It was a very big part of American history. But the war wasn't how I expected it would be. I thought it would be america fighting against Vietnam. But it was a war against 2 sides of Vietnam. One side was communist and the other was a democracy. America was helping fight the communists.

[Arpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Vietnam war was told from many different perspectives, but most important highlight was the stories that were told from the bottom of the society. If you want to learn more about the Vietnam war, I will highly recommend this book because the author uses a simple language and it will be easier to understand the complex history.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the heck? The problem with this book is that it hasn't been edited! The guy has written this as a first draft and published it. There are spelling mistakes, clunky sentences and all sorts of structural problems. Made it close to unreadable I'm afraid.

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in Vietnam...a totally different perspective on the war than I had ever heard before.

[J.C. Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book - easy to read, and tells ample stories of people's perspective of what happened at Vietnam war. I am surprised to find out how ignorant I am of people's history in Vietnam.

[sedge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book manages to provide a cogent overview of the war, its antecedents and consequences, while presenting a compelling interpretation of resistance and dedication. Empowering and inspiring.

[Xiulin Yang]

i am going to read this book so if any of you have read it please let me know cuz i got many questions for this book

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in how the Vietnam War changed U.S. policy and why.

[Ollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly the best history book I ever remember reading.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book a bit preachy and didn't trust it as a factual source. It felt more like a college term paper.

[Mike Wigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky school of thought. He makes tons of sense even.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, though a synthesis of second hand sources, history of the Vietnam with explicit anti-capitalist analysis of the war. An important read.

[Jordyn Hilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book right after the death of William Calley, the only man convicted of the Mai Lei massacre and I realized while I grew up hearing about the Vietnam War, I knew nothing about it. This book was very eye opening; very succinct in the way it describes the peoples suffering and the role that the United States played in the Indo-Chinese conflict. While addressing the various actors within the war and uncovering some of the less publicized perspectives, this book does a wonderful job demonstrating how the American elite class supported and funded the war in the face of demonstrations and protests, and covered up their grab for power in the aftermath. I loved how this book also placed the war in historical and foreign policy context and provided a digestible scene that allows readers to both understand and further explore the Vietnam War.

[Devoney Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting this year trying to finish all the books I’ve left half-read. This one I started when we started our encampment at my university, was reading it while we occupied the lobby in our admin building and taught me that no matter how little control you think you have, you still have enough agency to challenge the elite who will continue to trade our lives for profits. Imperialism will continue to lose wherever their are people to resist it.

[Freya Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring and heroic accounts of resistance fighters in Vietnam against the American invasion. Really beautiful and tear-jerking stories from those who lived it. Will read again and again and recommend endlessly to people wanting to read more about Vietnam or anti-imperialism.

[Brett Bosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. It conveys the significant events leading to and after the American War, through the lense of class, and with abundant primary sources quoted. Published just before the '03 Iraq War, so the conclusion is noticeably rushed.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on Vietnam.A different view then usual traditional liberal or conservative .

[Nica Castillo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lol

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant history of American imperialism from Vietnam to Iraq

[KCML · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly one of the most interesting books written on this subject written from a viewpoint sympathetic to the Left not only here but in Vietnam. The book does a lot to smash the notion that the Peace Movement in the U.S. was opposed to the GIs, in fact they collaborated quite openly and the veterans had been on the verge of open mutiny by the Tet Offensive, which spelled the military defeat not only of the VietCong but the political defeat of the U.S. Military. Ultimately it was American imperialism that lost to the Vietnamese AND the American people. There was no closer time in American history other than The Great Depression where this country was in danger of a popular uprising in which the very foundation of capitalist-imperialism was brought to it's knees all the while

1) There was a booming economy
2) There was almost no unemployment
3) Anti-Communism in the Labor movement was on the rise, even after the fact that most of The American working class opposed the war.

[Max Gwynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sobering but equally brilliant history of the 'American War' or the 'Vietnam War' as history has coined it.

Neale's history of the devastating war spans from its origins to its aftermaths and is told from both sides of the conflict.

A real eye opener and now my 'go-to' book on the topic of the war that changed the US and indeed the world.