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A review by gregbrown
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History by Mark Atwood Lawrence
4.0
Pretty good considering what it is: trying to sum up the two wars in Vietnam (French and American) in less than 200 pages, including the lead-up and aftermath.
One thing that I especially appreciated, considering most of the earlier literature didn't have access, is accounts of the internal political debates in North Vietnam and how that influenced their military strategies. You really get a sense of two societies prepared to gradually escalate their entanglement in the conflict, not wanting to act so rashly that it becomes a larger-scale proxy war but still managing to escalate to the full-scale conflagration of the late-60s/early-70s.
Drawback is it's kinda textbooky: so determined to be even-handed that it doesn't offer much of an organizing thesis, and structured in a somewhat formal way. (Each chapter summarizes that phase of the war in a few paragraphs before sections that cover each focus within that era.) Also really makes you wanna just read a more thorough book on the parts that interest you, but the footnotes aren't as huge of a help in that regard as I'd like, even with a "Further Reading" section at the end. Ah well, I got a big pile of books to read anyways.
One thing that I especially appreciated, considering most of the earlier literature didn't have access, is accounts of the internal political debates in North Vietnam and how that influenced their military strategies. You really get a sense of two societies prepared to gradually escalate their entanglement in the conflict, not wanting to act so rashly that it becomes a larger-scale proxy war but still managing to escalate to the full-scale conflagration of the late-60s/early-70s.
Drawback is it's kinda textbooky: so determined to be even-handed that it doesn't offer much of an organizing thesis, and structured in a somewhat formal way. (Each chapter summarizes that phase of the war in a few paragraphs before sections that cover each focus within that era.) Also really makes you wanna just read a more thorough book on the parts that interest you, but the footnotes aren't as huge of a help in that regard as I'd like, even with a "Further Reading" section at the end. Ah well, I got a big pile of books to read anyways.