Beyond Vietnam: The United States And Asia

by Edwin O. Reischauer

Book is Like New. Bright clean dust jacket has light shelf and edge wear. Text is perfect. Same day shipping.

Genres: History

242 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1967

About the author

Edwin Oldfather Reischauer was an American diplomat, educator, and professor at Harvard University. Born in Tokyo to American educational missionaries, he became a leading scholar of the history and culture of Japan and East Asia. Together with George M. McCune, a scholar of Korea, in 1939 he developed the McCune–Reischauer romanization of the Korean language.

Reischauer became involved in helping create US policy toward East Asia during and after World War II. President John F. Kennedy appointed Reischauer as the United States Ambassador to Japan, where he served from 1961 to 1966. Reischauer founded the Japan Institute at Harvard University in 1973 and was its founding director. It was later named in honor of him.

Reviews

[John Maberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the definitive book about the Vietnam War. If you want to read this book, you will have to buy a used copy somewhere and I am not parting with mine--sorry. I read it in 1970, seeking an understanding of how it was that I wound up being sent thousands of miles away to participate in the Vietnam War. As a former intelligence officer during World War II, a Harvard professor of Japanese history and with extensive knowledge of the Far East, Reischauer was eminently qualified to write this book. Several years in advance of the Pentagon Papers, he revealed much of the same history of U.S. decision making errors. If you still think the U.S. could have "won" this war, you need to read this book to see why we were doomed to fail by decisions that had been made many years before. There is plenty of blame to go around, from president to president and from Democrat to Republican. The essential point that can easily be seen, in 20/20 hindsight, that each time a fork in the road appeared, American officials took the wrong turn. At any point, had a different direction been taken, the outcome could have been much less costly (in terms of dollars and lives lost).