The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War

Introduction xi List of Abbreviations xiii PART I Historical Narrative 1(86) 1. Studying the Vietnam War 3(4) 2. Vietnam: Historical Background 7(8) Roots of the Vietnamese Culture and State 7(3) The Impact of French Colonialism 10(1) The Rise of Vietnamese Nationalism 11(1) The Origins of Vietnamese Communism 12(3) 3. United States: Historical Background 15(7) Idealism and Realism in U.S. Foreign Relations 15(1) The United States and the Open Door in Asia 16(2) The World Wars: The Legacies of Wilson and Munich 18(2) The Origins of the Cold War 20(2) 4. The French War in Vietnam 22(8) The August Revolution 23(1) Outbreak of the Franco-Vietminh War 24(1) U.S. Support of France in Indochina 25(2) Dienbienphu and the Geneva Conference 27(3) 5. The Diem Years: Eisenhower 30(7) The Decision to Back Ngo Dinh Diem 31(1) The Non-election of 1956 32(1) The Illusion of Nation Building 33(1) NLF: Rise of the Southern Insurgency 34(3) 6. The Diem Years: Kennedy 37(6) Counterinsurgency Warfare 38(1) The Buddhist Crisis 39(1) The Diem Assassination 40(1) What If Kennedy Had Lived? 41(2) 7. The American War in Vietnam: Escalation 43(12) The Gulf of Tonkin Incident 45(1) Rolling Thunder 46(1) Johnson Decides on a Land War in Asia 46(2) Theories of Causation 48(7) 8. The American War in Vietnam: Strategy 55(8) The Draft 56(1) Attrition Strategy and Body Count 57(1) Humpin' It: The American Soldier 58(1) The Air War 59(1) Diplomacy 60(1) The Resilient Enemy 61(2) 9. The American War in Vietnam: The Limits of Power 63(7) The Tet Offensive 63(2) The Antiwar Movement and the Media 65(2) Johnson's Decision to Stop Escalation 67(1) The Presidential Election of 1968 68(2) 10. The American War in Vietnam: De-escalation 70(125) Vietnamization and More Bombing 71(1) Cambodia and Kent State 72(1) Negotiations and the Paris Peace Accords 73(2) DRV Victory in 1975 75(3) The War That Will Not Go Away 78(1) The Postwar Wars in Southeast Asia 79(2) American Vietnam Veterans 81(2) Films, Fiction, and Poetry 83(1) Postmortems 84(3) PART II The Vietnam War from A to Z 87(90) PART III Chronology 177(18) PART IV Resource Guide 195(54) 1. General Works 197(12) Bibliographies and Historiographical Essays 197(1) Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Atlases 198(1) Surveys and Syntheses 199(3) Document Collections 202(1) Biographies 203(2) Memoirs 205(2) Oral Histories 207(2) 2. History of Southeast Asia and U.S. Foreign Relations 209(6) General History of Vietnam 209(1) History of U.S. Foreign Relations 210(1) The French Indochina War 211(2) Laos and Cambodia 213(2) 3. The Diem Years 215(2) 4. North Vietnam and the Vietcong 217(2) 5. Escalation 0f the American War 219(4) The Gulf of Tonkin Incident 219(1) Lyndon Johnson's Decisions for War 219(4) 6. The American Way of War 223(7) Military Operations and Overviews 223(3) My Lai Massacre 226(1) Pacification and Counterinsurgency 226(1) International Setting 227(3) 7. The Limits of American Power 230(5) Antiwar Movement 230(2) American Politics and Economy 232(1) Television and the Press 233(1) The Tet Offensive 234(1) 8. The End of the American War 235(3) Richard Nixon's War and Diplomacy 235(1) The End of South Vietnam 236(2) 9. The Legacy of the Vietnam War 238(6) Lessons and Postmortems 238(3) Literature, Movies, and Music 241(2) American Cultural Myths and National Identity 243(1) 10. Films and Documentaries 244(3) 11. Electronic Resources 247(2) PART V Appendices 249(44) Appendix 1. Documents 251(35) Appendix 2. Statistics 286(7) Index 293