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Modern War Studies
Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War 1945-1975
The Vietnam war continues to be the focus of intense controversy. While most people--liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, historians, pundits, and citizens alike--agree that the United States did not win the war, a vocal minority argue the opposite or debate why victory never came, attributing the quagmire to everything from domestic politics to the press. The military never lost a battle; how then did it not win the war? Stepping back from this overheated fray, bestselling author John Prados takes a fresh look at both the war and the debates about it to produce a much-needed and long-overdue reassessment of one of our nation's most tragic episodes. Drawing upon several decades of research--including recently declassified documents, newly available presidential tapes, and a wide range of Vietnamese and other international sources--Prados's magisterial account weaves together multiple perspectives across an epic-sized canvas where domestic politics, ideologies, nations, and militaries all collide. Prados patiently pieces back together the events and moments, from the end of World War II until our dispiriting departure from Vietnam in 1975, that reveal a war that now appears to have been truly unwinnable--due to opportunities lost, missed, ignored, or refused. He shows how--from the Truman through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations--American leaders consistently ignored or misunderstood the realities in Southeast Asia and passed up every opportunity to avoid war in the first place or avoid becoming ever more mired in it after it began. Highlighting especially Ike's seminal and long-lasting influence on our Vietnam policy, Prados demonstrates how andwhy our range of choices narrowed with each passing year, while our decision-making continued to be distorted by Cold War politics and fundamental misperceptions about the culture, psychology, goals, and abilities of both our enemies and our allies in Vietnam. By turns engaging narrative history, compelling analytic treatise, and moving personal account, Prados's magnum opus challenges previous authors and should rightfully take its place as the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and accurate one-volume account of a war that--judging by the frequent analogies to the current war in Iraq--has not yet really ended for any of us.
696 pages, Hardcover
First published April 21, 2009
13 people are currently reading
209 people want to read
About the author
John Prados
44 books34 followersDr. John Prados is an American historian & researcher whose primary areas of specialisation are the history of World War II, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and politico-military affairs generally. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in Political Science (International Relations). Dr. Prados is a senior fellow and project director with the National Security Archive at George Washington University (Washington, D.C.).
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 3, 2019
A well-written, well-researched and comprehensive history of the war.
The story is dense and assumes a lot of prior knowledge, but the narrative is balanced,fast-paced and very readable, (if a bit episodic) and Prados has a firm grasp of the political and military aspects of the war. He describes the phases of war from the French, American and North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese perspectives in a synthesized manner, and covers such issues as the capabilities of the North and South Vietnamese forces, the Cold War political and diplomatic context, the antiwar movement, the lack of leverage the US had over the various governments in Saigon when it came to reforming the country, and the problems in collecting intelligence on North Vietnamese capabilities. Prados’s coverage of the post-Tet offensive period is better and more thorough than most accounts I’ve read.
Prados ably covers how decisions made during the Truman and Eisenhower era limited the options of their successors. He is particularly good at describing how wishful thinking and mistaken readings of history influenced LBJ’s decisions, and he defends the Joint Chiefs from charges that they were somehow more at fault than Johnson, or that they were out of tune with the presidents they advised. He disputes the idea that Kennedy was committed to withdrawal. Prados also discusses how American administrations reacted to dissent and how these reactions (surveillance, wiretapping, etc.) harmed the reputations of the government agencies involved. Prados’ harshest criticism is of the Nixon administration, and he argues that Nixon and Kissinger actually wanted a secure and independent South Vietnam more than they wanted a “decent interval” or “peace with honor.” Westmoreland comes off as too uncritical of data and not a particularly gifted commander, but successful at managing the logistics of the war, while Abrams comes off as genuine and capable, but done in by Hanoi’s shift to conventional warfare.
There a few minor errors: at one point SOG commander John Singlaub is called a major general, for example. Harry Kinnard is called “Douglas,” and Claire Chennault is also called the theater commander for China. At one point Zhou Enlai is called the foreign minister during sections on the Johnson and Nixon era, even though he was not in this position at those times. Also, the book contains long sections on Prados' own experience in the antiwar movement, which some readers might find disruptive. Some more coverage of the Truman and Kennedy eras might also have helped.
A clear, rich, and compelling work.
The story is dense and assumes a lot of prior knowledge, but the narrative is balanced,fast-paced and very readable, (if a bit episodic) and Prados has a firm grasp of the political and military aspects of the war. He describes the phases of war from the French, American and North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese perspectives in a synthesized manner, and covers such issues as the capabilities of the North and South Vietnamese forces, the Cold War political and diplomatic context, the antiwar movement, the lack of leverage the US had over the various governments in Saigon when it came to reforming the country, and the problems in collecting intelligence on North Vietnamese capabilities. Prados’s coverage of the post-Tet offensive period is better and more thorough than most accounts I’ve read.
Prados ably covers how decisions made during the Truman and Eisenhower era limited the options of their successors. He is particularly good at describing how wishful thinking and mistaken readings of history influenced LBJ’s decisions, and he defends the Joint Chiefs from charges that they were somehow more at fault than Johnson, or that they were out of tune with the presidents they advised. He disputes the idea that Kennedy was committed to withdrawal. Prados also discusses how American administrations reacted to dissent and how these reactions (surveillance, wiretapping, etc.) harmed the reputations of the government agencies involved. Prados’ harshest criticism is of the Nixon administration, and he argues that Nixon and Kissinger actually wanted a secure and independent South Vietnam more than they wanted a “decent interval” or “peace with honor.” Westmoreland comes off as too uncritical of data and not a particularly gifted commander, but successful at managing the logistics of the war, while Abrams comes off as genuine and capable, but done in by Hanoi’s shift to conventional warfare.
There a few minor errors: at one point SOG commander John Singlaub is called a major general, for example. Harry Kinnard is called “Douglas,” and Claire Chennault is also called the theater commander for China. At one point Zhou Enlai is called the foreign minister during sections on the Johnson and Nixon era, even though he was not in this position at those times. Also, the book contains long sections on Prados' own experience in the antiwar movement, which some readers might find disruptive. Some more coverage of the Truman and Kennedy eras might also have helped.
A clear, rich, and compelling work.
March 14, 2015
An important study that combines a synthesis of previous scholarship on the war with some new material on the military (battlefield) and diplomatic aspects of the story. I'd been hoping that Prados would supersede Marilyn Young's The Vietnam Wars as an overview suited for students in the Vietnam-related classes I teach. It doesn't do that, for reasons I'll discuss in a moment, but it's necessary for scholars and advanced students. Along with Chris Appy's Patriots, A.J. Languth's Our Vietnam, and Gloria Emerson's Winners and Losers, it's on the short list of books to turn to after establishing the foundation with Young.
Prados's approach triangulates between events on the battlefields of Vietnam, the political machinations from the Eisenhower to the Nixon eras, and the anti-war movement, especially the elements of it centering on Vietnam veterans. He does a very good job identifying key moments in the sequence that led the U.S. into increasing commitment to a war no one at any moment seems to have believed was worth fighting on the level we fought it. He dismisses myths such as the one that JFK was going to get us out of the war, is unsparing in his analysis of LBJ's behavior at key moments--such as his response to the 1965 memo from MacNamara, Bundy, Rusk, Westmoreland and Earl Wheeler--that marks the de facto "point of no return" in American policy. He's aware that the war wasn't really under American control, though anyone wanting an in-depth sense of what Hanoi was thinking at a given moment should turn to Lien-Hang Nguye's Hanoi's War.
Several problems with (or characteristics of) the book keep it from becoming the go-to study. First is Prados's tendency to get bogged down in details in the areas he knows best. He loves governmental memorandum (and I'm glad he dug through them), but there's a fair amount of "inside baseball" in his presentation. You need to already know the culture of bureaucratic maneuvering before you can fully understand the import of much of the material he presents. Similarly, he has a weakness for the style of military history that focuses on the brass, referring to units in the field as if they were really controlled by the officer listed on the chart. I've spoken to a whole lot of Vietnam vets and I've never met a single one who identified himself with any leader with a rank higher than Captain; more often, the chain of command ends with a sergeant. The focus on the command structure creates some real problems after Creighton Abrams replaces William Westmoreland as the leader of MACV. Prados clearly has a deep affection for Abrams and grades him out very very highly. I don't have any real sense of what constitutes good leadership in the circumstances Abrams was faced with--unpromising to say the least--but I do know that the U.S. mission remained a mess for the troops in the field and I'm not willing to give the command any sort of pass. The job may have been impossible, but whatever Abrams did didn't make much difference.
That points to my deepest problem with Prados's book: he doesn't pay much attention to the experience of the troops in Vietnam. There's very little sense of what life was like for the men and women either in the field or in the vast bases in the rear. Nor is there a clear sense of the huge differences between the combat experiences in the various military regions. Similarly, there's not much about the culture of the war era, either for the Americans or the Vietnamese. All of that material is available in other studies, and I'm grateful to Prados for his additions to the story. A good book, but not definitive.
Prados's approach triangulates between events on the battlefields of Vietnam, the political machinations from the Eisenhower to the Nixon eras, and the anti-war movement, especially the elements of it centering on Vietnam veterans. He does a very good job identifying key moments in the sequence that led the U.S. into increasing commitment to a war no one at any moment seems to have believed was worth fighting on the level we fought it. He dismisses myths such as the one that JFK was going to get us out of the war, is unsparing in his analysis of LBJ's behavior at key moments--such as his response to the 1965 memo from MacNamara, Bundy, Rusk, Westmoreland and Earl Wheeler--that marks the de facto "point of no return" in American policy. He's aware that the war wasn't really under American control, though anyone wanting an in-depth sense of what Hanoi was thinking at a given moment should turn to Lien-Hang Nguye's Hanoi's War.
Several problems with (or characteristics of) the book keep it from becoming the go-to study. First is Prados's tendency to get bogged down in details in the areas he knows best. He loves governmental memorandum (and I'm glad he dug through them), but there's a fair amount of "inside baseball" in his presentation. You need to already know the culture of bureaucratic maneuvering before you can fully understand the import of much of the material he presents. Similarly, he has a weakness for the style of military history that focuses on the brass, referring to units in the field as if they were really controlled by the officer listed on the chart. I've spoken to a whole lot of Vietnam vets and I've never met a single one who identified himself with any leader with a rank higher than Captain; more often, the chain of command ends with a sergeant. The focus on the command structure creates some real problems after Creighton Abrams replaces William Westmoreland as the leader of MACV. Prados clearly has a deep affection for Abrams and grades him out very very highly. I don't have any real sense of what constitutes good leadership in the circumstances Abrams was faced with--unpromising to say the least--but I do know that the U.S. mission remained a mess for the troops in the field and I'm not willing to give the command any sort of pass. The job may have been impossible, but whatever Abrams did didn't make much difference.
That points to my deepest problem with Prados's book: he doesn't pay much attention to the experience of the troops in Vietnam. There's very little sense of what life was like for the men and women either in the field or in the vast bases in the rear. Nor is there a clear sense of the huge differences between the combat experiences in the various military regions. Similarly, there's not much about the culture of the war era, either for the Americans or the Vietnamese. All of that material is available in other studies, and I'm grateful to Prados for his additions to the story. A good book, but not definitive.
July 10, 2017
Assurément, le livre de John Prados est une somme. Non seulement l'auteur s'est attaché à présenter les racines du conflit et fait commencer son livre en 1945, mais il aborde aussi le mouvement anti-guerre et bien évidemment la politique menée depuis le bureau ovale. En revanche, il ne traite pas des traumatismes engendrés par cette guerre, du moins pas au-delà de la fin du conflit en 1975.
Néanmoins, il n'est pas exclu qu'il y ait des erreurs (j'en ai relevé une chronologique concernant le général de Gaulle et la politique française en Indochine en 1946) et je suspecte la version française d'être entachée de quelques erreurs qui dépassent le statut de la simple coquille par ailleurs présente à quelques reprises.
Il n'en demeure pas moins que c'est un excellent ouvrage.
Néanmoins, il n'est pas exclu qu'il y ait des erreurs (j'en ai relevé une chronologique concernant le général de Gaulle et la politique française en Indochine en 1946) et je suspecte la version française d'être entachée de quelques erreurs qui dépassent le statut de la simple coquille par ailleurs présente à quelques reprises.
Il n'en demeure pas moins que c'est un excellent ouvrage.
December 22, 2024
LBJ and Nixon are the villains in this story. Their foolishness cost so many so much.
April 2, 2021
Prados argues that the USA acted within the context of political, military, social, economic, foreign policy. He refers to this as an envelope. As events progressed from 1945 forward, that enveloped narrowed. This greatly reduced American flexibility and latitude for action. Prados believes that the war was unwinable. This account is somewhat influenced by the Iraq war. His objective is to create a large narrative account that incorporates recently (at least in late 1990s and early 2000s) released primary sources and synthesizes the latest secondary histories. Prados writes South Vietnam back into the story. I liked his personal accounts of his experience as a student at Columbia University. And I like how he fact-checked numerous memoirs. Unsurprisingly, they are chockfull of errors, omissions, and misstatements. It is a little long. It is an excellent analytical account of policy and decision-making at the highest levels. Very little is said of military history and battles. There are photos but I don't recall any maps at all.
July 15, 2024
The best of what great history-- and particularly military history--can be. A thesis is clear and compelling, the history looks across the social and the political (readers looking for a blow-by-blow battlefield report will not see it here, itself a sound decision to carefully avoid the "won the battles, lost the war" claim) to provide a case for that argument. And Prados's compelling personal experience is carefully embraced, rather than ignored for a false sense of "impartiality." The result is a work that, as one blurb mentions, could well stand as "the" book to read about the war.
January 21, 2019
Very comprehensive although it jumps around a bit from topic to topic.
It was published in 2009 when comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam were en vogue but it got annoying after a while which brought it down a star.
It was published in 2009 when comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam were en vogue but it got annoying after a while which brought it down a star.
December 26, 2025
Lots of details, sometimes too many…. Informative to the following wars : Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine…. Same M. O, different excuses and ultimately same results
August 15, 2024
“Exhaustive and exhausting” to steal a line from a classmate. This should not be your first book on Vietnam; Prados writes for the informed reader.
September 29, 2009
In his preface Prados states his aim is to provide the most comprehensive history to date of our involvement in Vietnam. In terms of detailing the diplomatic, political, and military events of the war he succeeds. He offers narrative and a bald accounting of what happened. At times he's a bit too meticulous in trying to describe some aspects, trying, I thought, to capture every facet of of a particular part of the picture. The antiwar movement is an example, I thought, where he seemed too detailed, even writing about his own involvement while a student at Columbia. His careful listings of Nixon's machinations while trying to find a peace on his own terms at South Vietnam's expense as his own political position eroded was another. Prados's conclusions, entitled "The Reasons Why," soars. He presents perspectives which are fresh and convincing. Never have I read that one of the reasons for the allies' lack of success was because South Vietnamese leaders failed to understand Americans and never tried to explain the Byzantine nature of Saigon's politics. It's also in this conclusion that Prados elucidates how the war was never winnable (he also makes clear why the people defining the policy and prosecuting the war couldn't see this--events not yet become history). These revolve around his argument that we were forced by a multitude of circumstances into policies and diplomacies and doctrines we thought we were controlling, only to find ourselves in an untenable position, in an unwinnable war. Only in the early days of the Kennedy administration could we have avoided defeat by avoiding deep commitment.
August 4, 2014
I haven't read much on the Vietnam war - I was in college while it was finishing up. Empathy is an important factor when trying to defeat an enemy and Prados makes it pretty clear we had none. This book in no help in trying to find a reason for fighting the war. I think that is Prados' point. The usual story we get on this war is a soldier's timeline or behind door American Politics. Prados brings in the Vietnamese themselves although it is hard to keep track of who's who. Prados is also an expert tracker down of documents - a highly regarded researcher. A thirty year history is too much for one book but this is an excellent start. It is a view from the left though but a lot of the right views are apologetic explanations by those who dug the mess. I think this is an honest book.
July 9, 2015
This summers "Serious"read for me. A very interesting look at the war from a "left wing" perspective. I've read the authors work in the past and liked his writing. The history is very good taking advantage of released records and late in life interviews with key figures. The tragic thing about Vietnam that the book shows is how many chances America had to get out and refused for various reasons (politics pride) and failed to do so. I'm was fascinated by Prados' concept that the road to Watergate ran through Vietnam. I would not recommend this book to a casual reader but anyone with an initial interest in the subject I think will enjoy it.
October 16, 2012
ok so i'm reading this for a class, obviously, but i'm unexpectedly interested in it. i had no prior interest in the vietnam war, nor do i believe i'm going to become an expert, but i'm sincerely impressed with the ability to understand and follow the author's interpretations. The only way i can really explain it is to say its one of the very few required readings i've been assigned in my 20 some years of schooling that i actually want to read.
April 6, 2018
The writing is very good. The author very skillfully weaves the military, political, and domestic history of the period into a seamless narrative that is quite engaging, very readable, and easy to follow. But the author's pervasive bias tarnishes this book as a work of history in my opinion. I do not necessarily disagree with the author's conclusions. I would, however, wish for a more objective approach. Thus, the 3-star review.
August 2, 2009
A curious, weaving, convincing, but so-far, conventional account of the period. So far, more report than insight. In sum, a good summary and refresher. How all these writers ignore the international observers and participants, most of all, "North' Viet Nam, is a 'puzzlement' and reduces their efforts to the parochial. Which is certainly an American theme. Sadly.
July 23, 2018
May have pipped Karnow for top general history of the Vietnam War, though you'll want to read both. Prados is a fine writer and his withering takes on a succession of American presidents - Truman through Nixon - are noteworthy
October 4, 2009
After nearly 600 pages of 'story' and 80+ pages of small type notes and references, you almost think you know what Vietnam was all about.
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August 2, 2011Very thorough examination of all the politics behind the scenes that led to and kept us mired in Vietnam Unfortunately it was a pretty dry read.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews