After Vietnam: Legacies of a Lost War

Efforts to understand the impact of the Vietnam War on America began soon after it ended, and they continue to the present day. In After Vietnam four distinguished scholars focus on different elements of the war's legacy, while one of the major architects of the conflict, former defense secretary Robert S. McNamara, contributes a final chapter pondering foreign policy issues of the twenty-first century.

In the book's opening chapter, Charles E. Neu explains how the Vietnam War changed Americans' sense of themselves: challenging widely-held national myths, the war brought frustration, disillusionment, and a weakening of Americans' sense of their past and vision for the future. Brian Balogh argues that Vietnam became such a powerful metaphor for turmoil and decline that it obscured other forces that brought about fundamental changes in government and society. George C. Herring examines the postwar American military, which became nearly obsessed with preventing another Vietnam. Robert K. Brigham explores the effects of the war on the Vietnamese, as aging revolutionary leaders relied on appeals to revolutionary heroism to justify the communist party's monopoly on political power. Finally, Robert S. McNamara, aware of the magnitude of his errors and burdened by the war's destructiveness, draws lessons from his experience with the aim of preventing wars in the future.

Author: Charles E. Neu
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 06/16/2000
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.31w x 0.46d
ISBN: 9780801863325

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/29/2000 pg. 67
Library Journal 05/15/2000 pg. 105
School Library Journal 06/01/2001 pg. 188
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2001 pg. 35
Publishers Weekly 05/22/2000

About the Author

Charles E. Neu is a professor and chair in the department of history at Brown University. He is the author of The Troubled Encounter: The United States and Japan and An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan and the editor of The Wilson Era: Essays in Honor of Arthur S. Link. Contributors: Brian Balogh, University of Virginia; Robert K. Brigham, Vassar College; George C. Herring, University of Kentucky; and Robert S. McNamara, former president of the Ford Motor Company, secretary of defense, and president of the World Bank.

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