A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975

By Robert D. Schulzinger

Book Overview

"...Schultzinger takes a fresh look at the Vietnam War by drawing on newly-opened archival materials and utilizing the already extensive bibliography on the war. His narrative is free from the passions of the day which continue to influence the works of many scholars."--BookReviews Even after two decades, the memory of the Vietnam War seems to haunt our culture. From Forrest Gump to Miss Saigon, from Tim O'Brien's Pulitzer Prize-winning Going After Cacciato to Robert McNamara's controversial memoir In Retrospect, Americans are drawn again and again to ponder our long, tragic involvement in Southeast Asia. Now eminent historian Robert D. Schulzinger has combed the newly available documentary evidence, both in public and private archives, to produce an ambitious, masterful account of three decades of war in Vietnam--the first major full-length history of the conflict to be based on primary sources.
In A Time for War, Schulzinger paints a vast yet intricate canvas of more than three decades of conflict in Vietnam, from the first rumblings of rebellion against the French colonialists to the American intervention and eventual withdrawal. His comprehensive narrative incorporates every aspect of the war--from the military (as seen in his brisk account of the French failure at Dienbienphu) to the economic (such as the wage increase sparked by the draft in the United States) to the political. Drawing on massive research, he offers a vivid and insightful portrait of the changes in Vietnamese politics and society, from the rise of Ho Chi Minh, to the division of the country, to the struggles between South Vietnamese president Diem and heavily armed religious sects, to the infighting and corruption that plagued Saigon. Schulzinger reveals precisely how outside powers--first the French, then the Americans--committed themselves to war in Indochina, even against their own better judgment. Roosevelt, for example, derided the French efforts to reassert their colonial control after World War II, yet Truman, Eisenhower, and their advisers gradually came to believe that Vietnam was central to American interests. The author's account of Johnson is particularly telling and tragic, describing how president would voice clear headed, even prescient warnings about the dangers of intervention--then change his mind, committing America's prestige and military might to supporting a corrupt, unpopular regime. Schulzinger offers sharp criticism of the American military effort, and offers a fascinating look inside the Nixon White House, showing how the Republican president dragged out the war long past the point when he realized that the United States could not win. Finally, Schulzinger paints a brilliant political and social portrait of the times, illuminating the impact of the war on the lives of ordinary Americans and Vietnamese. Schulzinger shows what it was like to participate in the war--as a common soldier, an American nurse, a navy flyer, a conscript in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, a Vietcong fighter, or an antiwar protester.
In a field crowded with fiction, memoirs, and popular tracts, A Time for War will stand as the landmark history of America's longest war. Based on extensive archival research, it will be the first place readers will turn in an effort to understand this tragic, divisive conflict.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195071891
• ISBN13: 9780195071894
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.3" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Solid historical overview of Vietnam and U.S. involvement

This is worth while reading for anyone interested in how the U.S. and it's political leaders, step by step, led the country into the tragedy that was Vietnam. The antecedents really go back to the end of WW II and is a long complicated story that involves the administrations of six presidents. Although this book is a fairly high level look at Vietnam (it would take more than one book to do otherwise), the author does do a good job of pulling the many threads together in to a fairly coherent story. The war in Vietnam generated strong emotions then and still does for some people, but I appreciate that the author tells the story of the war in a fairly straight forward manner. I have over 30 books on Vietnam in my book collection (I'm a Vietnam vet) and this book is a solid addition to that collection and I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the subject.

Good, depending on what you're looking for

This book is a very good political (not military) history of the war. It's based on U.S. archives, so it's told entirely from the perspective of U.S. policymakers, even when discussing French or Vietnamese events. Also, although the book is about as objective as possible, you really can't leave politics behind when you write about Vietnam. Schulzinger believes that the United States could not have won the war; that we got involved out of misguided good intentions rather than evil motives; and that the Vietminh and Vietcong were homegrown liberation movements, not puppets of the Soviets or Chinese. Those are common and reasonable views, so I'm just saying know what you're getting. Overall, I preferred Karnow's Vietnam to this book. Karnow's politics and focus (U.S. policymakers) is similar. Schulzinger, a historian, has better command of the written source materials, but Karnow, a journalist in Vietnam during the war, is a better writer and rounds out the story with his own observations. Still, with all those caveats, this is a very readable and informative book.

A much-needed study of the Vietnam War

The conflict in Vietnam was one of the most divisive foreign policy issues in our nation's history. The events which led up to full-scale American involvement in Vietnam vividly illustrated this divisiveness; a divisiveness which would change politics in America and the way in which Americans would look at their government. Robert D. Schulzinger's book, "A Time for War:The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975", presents a comprehensive and analytical narrative on a war which is still hard for historians and the public to fully understand and interpret. Schulzinger brilliantly portrays U.S. involvement in Vietnamese affairs by analyzing how presidents and their national security teams from Roosevelt to Ford handled foreign policy concerning Vietnam. The objectivity of the book is very important and refreshing and interestingly points out how so many politicians and foreign policy experts predicted the eventual outcome of U.S. military involvement. Schulzinger's analysis of Johnson and his relations with advisors such as Robert McNamara, Walt Rostow, and McGeorge Bundy, tell of a president who knew what he was getting the country into but could not look beyond the short term effects of his decisions. By 1967-68, the war totally consumed Johnson and a point of no return was reached. Schulzinger also points out that the various South Vietnamese regimes failed to give proper support and encouragement to U.S. efforts. U.S. involvement in Vietnam was much too often taken for granted and this was a serious flaw in relations between Saigon and Washington. Unity and sense of nationalism were severely lacking in South Vietnam. Schulzinger's book provides a well-rounded and comprehensive analysis of a difficult time in American history. His primary source research was well done and the objectivity of the book was truly refreshing. The only drawback to the book is that one can easily get lost in his discussions of politics and diplomatic maneuvering. It also might have behooved the author to cover the American soldiers' experiences a little more as well. But, overall, this is a book which definitely stands out among Vietnam historiography.

A clear-cut history of the rationale for the Vietnam debacle

Dr. Schulzinger's book is the first of a two-part series on the history of Vietnamese resistance. While A Time For Peace is still being written, the prequel, A Time for War clearly describes the hows and whys that caused, first the French, and then the Americans to become embroiled in a controversial conflict that would divide their nations. Although some of Shulzinger's conclusions can be considered suspect (who could ever say that President Diem was not corrupt?), overall, the treatment is well-done.