Book Review: 'The Vietnam War: An Intimate History'
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| (C) 2017 Alfred A. Knopf Books; Cover art by Public Broadcasting Service |
The Vietnam War was more than a Cold War-era clash of arms fought mainly by the U.S. and its South Vietnamese allies against the Communist-led government of North Vietnam and its guerrilla allies of the National Liberation Front - known by Washington and Saigon as the Viet Cong - in the South. It was that, of course, but the war was also the most divisive event in American history since the Civil War of the mid-19th Century. In the introduction, series directors Burns and Novick write:
It's been forty years now, and despite President (Gerald) Ford's optimism, we have been unable to put that war behind us. The deep wounds it inflicted on our nation, our communities, our families, and our politics have festered. As Army veteran Phil Gioia said in an interview for our documentary series, "The Vietnam War drove a stake right into the heart of America. It polarized the country as it had probably not been polarized since the Civil War, and we've never recovered."
Although Gioia's comment might be dismissed by some individuals of the conservative persuasion as being "liberal hyperbole," it's worth noting that the ideological rift between right-wing Americans and left-wing Americans widened to a deep chasm in the tumultuous years between 1963 and 1973 - the period in which a long-simmering civil war in Southeast Asia became an American war to stop "Godless Communism" - and became a bloody, needless, and futile quagmire waged, above all things, to save the political faces of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.
ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR
From the award-winning historian and filmmakers of The Civil War, Baseball, The War, The Roosevelts, and others: a vivid, uniquely powerful history of the conflict that tore America apart–the companion volume to the major, multipart PBS film to be aired in September 2017. - from the publisher's websiteWriting this generously-illustrated companion book, acclaimed historian Geoffrey C. Ward and producer Ken Burns deploy their creative talents in another literary collaboration in the same manner as a skilled and canny general plans and executes a brilliant military operation. They do so by telling the many stories of the Vietnam War - from France's long struggle to "pacify" its unwilling colony in Indochina to the hasty - and humiliating - helicopter evacuation from Saigon at the end of April 1975 - without being judgmental or casting unfair aspersions on any of the warring factions.
The book is divided, like the series it complements, into 10 chapters. They are:
- Chapter One: Déjà Vu (1858-1961); it is supplemented by the essay "Paths to Power" by Edward Miller
- Chapter Two: Riding the Tiger (1961-1963); it is supplemented by the essay "Kennedy and What Might Have Been" by Frederik Logevall
- Chapter Three: The River Styx (January 1964-December 1965)
- Chapter Four: Resolve (January 1966- June 1967)
- Chapter Five: What We Do (July-December 1967)
- Chapter Six: Things Fall Apart (January-June 1968)
- Chapter Seven: The Veneer of Civilization (June 1968-April 1969)
- Chapter Eight: The History of the World (May 1969-December 1970); it is supplemented by the essay "Seeing Americans Again" by Bao Ninh
- Chapter Nine: A Disrespectful Loyalty (January 1971-March 1973); it is supplemented by the essay "Vietnam and the Movement" by Todd Gitlin
- Chapter Ten: The Weight of Memory (March 1973-April 1975); it is supplemented by the essay "Dust of Life, Dust of War" by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Readers who have watched the series will notice that though Ward and Burns often use some of the same prose that Ward wrote in the scripts for The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, this is not merely a lavishly-illustrated, nicely edited transcript of the television documentary. Much of the book's content is unique to The Vietnam War: An Intimate History, and many of the anecdotes that appear as moving images on the screen are often presented slightly differently or mixed in with other bits of history and stories that Ward and Burns chose to tell in the book but not in the documentary. (Sharp-eyed owners of the Blu-ray set may note that the book's narrative includes vignettes that can only be seen on the Deleted Scenes section of Disc One's extra features.)
Though the book is definitely worth reading, it is definitely not flawless. As often happens when a book project is so complex and production deadlines loom, mistakes creep in.
I have not caught any major mistakes in the main text, but on a two-page photo spread (pages 64-65), there is a caption that describes a napalm strike by South Vietnamese Air Force AD-1 Skyraiders thusly:
American jets drop napalm on communist positions, 1963.
At first glance, misidentifying South Vietnamese aircraft for American ones is forgivable; the U.S.-built military aircraft used by the two allies bore national insignia - star-and-bars roundels - that to the untrained eye looked identical. Close examination, however, reveals that the coloring inside the roundel's bars is yellow, which identifies that aircraft as South Vietnamese
But the AD-1 Skyraider was an inelegant, non-swept wing propeller-driven aircraft, not a jet-powered, swept-wing fighter like the F-4 Phantom II or the F-105 Thunderchiefs flown by the Americans.
This is probably the worst editorial gaffe in the book; there may be a few more sprinkled here and there, and it probably wasn't even made by Burns or Ward. It's minor and many readers probably wouldn't have caught it. But it is there, and it pulled me out of the reading experience for a few moments. It's not a mortal sin of commission, mind you, but it is going to be noticed by readers who know about military aircraft and their history.
On the whole, however. The Vietnam War: An Intimate History is a well-written and nicely presented book. Ward and Burns are, by now, two of the most respected historians/documentary makers/storytellers in contemporary America and they know their stuff. The authorial tone of the book is informative without bordering on the dry, often didactic style that some historians adopt when they write about Vietnam.
And because 42 years have passed since the war ended, the book - like the documentary it complements - attempts to explain the tragedy of the war without pretending to have all the answers. It doesn't take sides; The Vietnam War: An Intimate History covers the events of the 30-year conflict as fairly as possible. Of course, its narrative describes how the policymakers in Congress, the White House (with Republican and Democratic Administrations in charge) and the Pentagon made a series of decisions which in retrospect should not have been made. It also exposes the sad realities of war's effects on the men and women who are asked to fight in one, and how easily the "veneer of civilization" wore away from even the most decent and kind individuals in that most unforgiving of arenas: the battlefield.
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