Time is a resource I currently have in abundance, and I’ve decided to make the most of it by delving deep into the literature on the Second Indochina War (as well as works that help to contextualize it even if that conflict is tangential to a given book’s thesis). Below is a list of writings on the subject that caught my attention and that I’ve concluded would provide a valuable perspective on what most of the world refers to as the Vietnam War. I’ve organized the books into categories based on theme. I plan to update the list as time passes and will write reviews for each one over the course of the year. Even though I know it’s unlikely anyone will read my posts at all, let alone with serious interest, it would nevertheless be productive for me to educate myself further on one of my favorite topics when I still have the liberty to do so. Perhaps some fellow sperg will find this informative or enriching, but that’s probably hoping for too much! There are notes explaining the subcategories. The books below are fairly limited in number because I’m only including those that are most relevant to my specific interests. Therefore, the number of volumes on US intervention and the Americanization of the war are proportionally lower than, for example, the number on the middle power involvement (a topic that is personally more fascinating).
Decolonization
In this subcategory are books that examine the transition from the First Indochina War to the second. In the popular American understanding, France began a vain attempt to recolonize Vietnam in 1946 to recover its lost great power status after the German occupation of France (1940-1944), and Washington reluctantly began to assist Paris so that the latter would remain a loyal NATO member. The actual history is, predictably, more complicated. France had abandoned the idea of empire towards the end of WWII in favor of a French Union although the details had yet to be ironed out. Ho Chi Minh’s newly proclaimed Democratic Republic of Vietnam agreed in early 1946 to become a free state in the French Union, but ambiguities in the terms eventually resulted in war towards the end of the year. Nonetheless, in 1949 France proceeded to create the State of Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai with a government in Saigon as a non-communist alternative to the DRV. America and Britain gave it diplomatic recognition the following year. People typically cast this state as no more than a puppet government, but it’s not a straightforward story of attempted recolonization. Thus, I’m categorizing books on this period under “Decolonization” because they explain the end of French rule across the whole of Vietnam (as well as Laos and Cambodia) and national partition, and set the context for the ensuing civil war and American intervention. This list is pretty short since I’m currently using these books for greater context rather than for a detailed study of the First Indochina War.
The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam by Christopher Goscha
The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence and Fredrik Logevall
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall
Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam by Kathryn Statler
The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam by Martin Windrow
North Vietnam
Works on the Vietnamese Civil War published in English have traditionally focused on America’s role in the conflict and on the war’s Americanization. However, in recent years there have been a string of texts that aim to de-center the US, and plenty have sought to explain North Vietnamese decision making and even North Vietnam’s causal role in the outbreak of hostilities. Because Hanoi continues to limit access to primary source materials and to censor politically incorrect interpretations of history, studies remain limited. Having said that, North Vietnam was arguably the most crucial player in the path to war and to peace, so I can’t overrecommend the texts below.
Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965 by Pierre Asselin
Vietnam’s American War: A History by Pierre Asselin
Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace by Lien-Hang T. Nguyen
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology by Tuong Vu
South Vietnam
The Republic of Vietnam’s experience of the war has been severely underrepresented in popular writing and documentaries on the topic. Because the anti-war movement came to dominate the press and the academy, South Vietnam was brushed over as a kleptocratic American vassal without agency or autonomy. This is unfortunate given the wealth of available oral and written history to be found within much of the overseas Vietnamese community. To borrow some terminology normally associated with people who irritate me, it seems a bit disrespectful to invalidate or ignore the lived experiences (as opposed to per-gestational or postmortem experience?) of a huge swath of people by insisting on a narrative that is more sympathetic to the Communist side. Furthermore, the effect on South Vietnam was certainly more profound than the effect on the US and arguably more profound than the effect on the North. Additionally, the Communist movement within the South initially played a significant role in the conflict, and in the view of some scholars its vulnerability spurred the North into aggressive action. Therefore, I’ve included books on both the Nationalists and the Communists in South Vietnam.
Cauldron of Resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam by Jessica Chapman
Finding the Dragon Lady: The Mystery of Vietnam’s Madame Nhu by Monique Brinson Demery
The Tragedy of the Vietnam War by Van Nguyen Duong
The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975 by David Elliott
The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family by Duong Van Mai Elliott (married to author above)
Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam by Seth Jacobs
Nationalist in the Vietnam Wars by Nguyen Cong Luan
South Vietnamese Soldiers: Memories of the Vietnam War and After by Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen
The Republic of Vietnam: Vietnamese Perspectives on Nation-Building, 1955-1975 edited by Tuong Vu and Sean Fear
Americanization
More ink has been spilled on America’s place in the conflict than on any other player (at least in English) due to the massive trove of sources from the US government. Despite this, it’s not a topic of particular fascination to me. Therefore, my list for this category is probably disappointingly short for anyone who has bothered scrolling this far. Since the war wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did without American intervention nor would it have been as consequential without it, I still thought it was necessary to include a selection of works on the topic.
American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity by Christian Appy
Vietnam’s Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War by Andrew L. Johns
Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam by H.R. McMaster
In Retrospect by Robert McNamara
In Good Faith: A History of the Vietnam War (1945-1965) by Sergio Miller
No Wider War: A History of the Vietnam War (1965-1975) by Sergio Miller
Middle Power Involvement
I wrote my MA thesis on the war’s effect on Australian foreign policy. Expectedly, writings on the role of third parties besides the US have always been a point of interest. To my consternation, I haven’t been able to find any book-length volumes in English on South Korea’s involvement in the war despite the country sending the greatest number of troops after America. Fortunately, I uncovered a wealth of writings on Australia’s intervention while working on my thesis. Americans tend not to know about the support that the other “Free World Forces” participants provided in Vietnam, and both Americans and the Vietnamese government frame the war as a clash between America and Vietnam rather than as a conflict between two sovereign states with each receiving international support. Ergo, I’m inclined to view this category as perhaps the most likely to expand people’s horizons.
A Nation at War: Australian Politics, Society, and Diplomacy During the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 by Peter Edwards
Australia and the Vietnam War: The Essential History by Peter Edwards
Dangerous Allies by Malcolm Fraser
“The Vietnam War: South Korea’s Search for National Security” by Min-Young Lee in The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea edited by Byung-Kook Kim and Ezra Vogel
China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975 by Qiang Zhai
Peace Process
I’ve so far only touched the surface of the path to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Consequently, this section is the most in need of expansion. I’ve included one first hand account by Henry Kissinger and one overview by Pierre Asselin.
A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement by Pierre Asselin
Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-1975 by George J. Veith
Ending the Vietnam War by Henry Kissinger
Orthodox Narrative
There are few expressions more hackneyed than “History is written by the victors.” No! History is written by historians. Academics, journalists, and documentarians shape narratives by deciding which pieces of information are to be included in their coverage and how these pieces of information fit together into a coherent narrative. The narrative about the Second Indochina War that won out in America is that the US should’ve never been in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese government was corrupt and illegitimate, there was no way for Saigon or Washington to win, the Communists were really just anti-colonial patriots seeking freedom from Western domination, and the South Vietnamese were unwilling to fight for their government because the North had won their hearts and minds. In case you haven’t realized it yet, I disagree with this conventional wisdom. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to study this perspective since it dominated the early scholarship and continues to impact American views of Vietnam.
I should note that I don’t at all object to elements of the conventional wisdom forming the official history in the contemporary Socialist Republic of Vietnam today. During my stay in Saigon, I saw red flags all over the city and appreciated being in a land uninfected by oikophobia. It’s not my intention to disparage the patriotic myths of other countries, especially when they serve as sources of civic pride and unity. I’m glad that they celebrate their history as they understand it; I’d just wish for the American public and intelligentsia to seek a more dispassionate view that is more inclusive of perspectives from our nation’s Vietnamese diaspora.
Here’s a practical instance of how the orthodox narrative and its underlying assumptions delude even reasonably intelligent analysts: How often do you hear people insist the Vietnamese will align with the US against China on the grounds that they’re eternally bickering with the giant next door and the Vietnamese have fought for all of recorded history for their independence? Chances are that you’ve heard this at some point if you’ve made it this far. Vietnam and China actually enjoy closer relations today than Vietnam and the US in spite of the Vietnamese public’s dislike of their neighbor to the north, and it’s false to claim the two nations have been locked in perennial conflict. You can see how corrosive the conventional wisdom is to serious analysis of contemporary Vietnam by Americans. I plan to write a longer piece (or series) on this perspective on history at some point.
Fire in the Lake: The Americans and the Vietnamese in Vietnam by Frances Fitzgerald
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
Revisionism
To balance out the orthodox narrative, here are some books that challenge it. This is another area I’m new to, so additions are needed. As you can likely surmise, the revisionist interpretation of the war takes the opposite position of the conventional wisdom on at least some of the conventional wisdom’s core tenets. Being inclined towards contrarianism, I appreaciate that.
Vietnam: The Necessary War by Michael Lind
Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 by Mark Moyar
Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968 by Mark Moyar
Historiography and Legacy
Having introduced the orthodox and revisionist schools of thought, I’ve added this category for the two to clash. I also include works about the conflict’s interpretation and legacy in the twenty-first century.
Triumph Revisited: Historians Battle for the Vietnam War edited by Andrew Wiest and Michael Doidge
New Perceptions of the Vietnam War: Essays on the War, the South Vietnamese Experience, the Diaspora, and the Continuing Impact edited by Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen
Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War by Viet Thanh Nguyen
General Overview
In case anybody ever comes across this page and bothers to scan it with genuine interest, this might be the most relevant part. Most adults don’t have much time to indulge in examining the details of history, so general overviews of particular events in the form of a single volume are understandably popular. I’ve decided to stick to more recent works because older ones tend to fall too strongly into the orthodox narrative.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History by Mark Atwood Lawrence
Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings
General Vietnamese History
The Second Indochina War is just one in a series of three wars, and Vietnam proper was just one part of the battlefield. Ergo, it’s certainly helpful to study Vietnamese history before and after this single war to grasp it as one phase in a country’s and a region’s remarkable history. General works on Vietnam always have at least one chapter on this stage in the country’s saga. As a consequence, they’re necessarily brief on the topic, but they contextualize it as part of a longer saga than more detailed works. Vietnam specialists like to remind us that “Vietnam is a country, not a war” even though many Americans use the proper noun as a synonym for this particular armed struggle.
Vietnam: A New History by Christopher Goscha
A History of the Vietnamese by Keith Taylor
Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars
The US probably wouldn’t have intervened in Vietnam if events had unfolded differently in the country’s landlocked neighbor. Laos served as a forward base for North Vietnamese supply routes and as a battlefield between a French-created regime and communists. Had America selected Laos as the plug to halt the leaking of communism into the wider region, it’s likely that communism would’ve been restricted to north of the seventeenth parallel. Moreover, the Cambodia campaign in 1970 remains a point of controversy (see the seething over the late Henry Kissinger by the poorly informed). I must note the irony that many of the same people who criticize South Vietnam’s and America’s incursion into Cambodia are fine with Ukrainian strikes into Belgorod. I am too because in a war it’s fair game to attack across borders when there are enemy bases from raids are being launched. Anyway, I’m throwing this in as a bonus section that will undoubtedly deepen understanding of former French Indochina and its turbulent period in the Cold War.
The Universe Unravelling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos by Seth Jacobs
Before the Quagmire: American Intervention in Laos, 1954-1961 by William J. Rust
Eisenhower and Cambodia: Diplomacy, Covert Action, and the Origins of the Second Indochina War by William J. Rust
So Much to Lose: John F. Kennedy and American Policy in Laos by William J. Rust
Excellent. You've given us who want to learn about Vietnam's modern history a very, very good starting point