America in Vietnam: A Documentary History

By Thomas J. McCormick

Book Overview

This collection of essays and documents, written and compiled by four distinguished historians, is an essential source book for anyone seeking to understand the causes, character, and consequences of American involvement in Vietnam.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385197527
• ISBN13: 9780385197526
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 345 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Complement to the Pentagon Papers

This collection of documents is especially useful for documents not in the Pentagon Papers, including some amazing ones from the 1950s. It's concise and annotated, emphasizing the origins of the war; half of the documents are dated prior to 1960.

Oregon State University's critique

William Appleman Williams was a prolific and influential writer of a dozen revisionist books that challenged prevailing views of American history, deploring the United States as an imperialist power pressing its economic and ideological will around the globe. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin from 1960 to 1968 and at Oregon State University from 1968 to 1986, when he retired with the title emeritus. The genially combative professor, who termed himself a radical and was often called the founder of the New Left school of American history, was particularly critical of America's role in the Cold War and in Vietnam. With passionate argument and complex analysis, he championed self-determination for all people and argued that a refusal by Americans to acknowledge a national desire for expansion and global hegemony has led to major errors and confusion over the nation's future.