The False Peace 1972 74

Describes the Paris peace agreement signed in 1972 and the rapid changes in political fortunes in Southeast Asia during the two years which followed.

Describes the Paris peace agreement signed in 1972 and the rapid changes in political fortunes in Southeast Asia during the two years which followed.

A Vietnam veteran recounts his experience through two tours of duty—early in the conflict and then in its final stages. Fresh out of West Point, John Howard arrived for his first tour in Vietnam in 1965, the first full year of escalation when U.S. troop levels increased dramatically, from 23,000 to 184,000. When Howard returned for a second tour in 1972, troop strength stood at 24,000 and would dwindle to a mere fifty the following year. He thus participated in the very early and very late stages of American military involvement in the Vietnam War. Howard’s two tours—the first as a platoon commander and member of an elite counterguerrilla force, and the second as a senior advisor to the South Vietnamese—provide a fascinating lens through which to view not only one soldier’s experience in Vietnam, but also the country’s.

National Book Award Finalist: The “impressive” conclusion to the “magisterial trilogy on the mythology of violence in American history” (Film Quarterly). “The myth of the Western frontier—which assumes that whites’ conquest of Native Americans and the taming of the wilderness were preordained means to a progressive, civilized society—is embedded in our national psyche. U.S. troops called Vietnam ‘Indian country.’ President John Kennedy invoked ‘New Frontier’ symbolism to seek support for counterinsurgency abroad. In an absorbing, valuable, scholarly study, [the author] traces the pervasiveness of frontier mythology in American consciousness from 1890. . . . Dime novels and detective stories adapted the myth to portray gallant heroes repressing strikers, immigrants and dissidents. Completing a trilogy begun with Regeneration Through Violence and The Fatal Environment, Slotkin unmasks frontier mythmaking in novels and Hollywood movies. The myth’s emphasis on use of force over social solutions has had a destructive impact, he shows.” —Publishers Weekly “Stirring . . . Breaks new ground in its careful explication of the continuing dynamic between politics and myth, myth and popular culture.” —The New York Times “A subtle and wide-ranging examination how America’s fascination with the frontier has affected its culture and politics. . . . Intellectual history at its most stimulating—teeming with insights into American violence, politics, class, and race.” —Kirkus Reviews

This book provides a comprehensive narrative history of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, from 1942 to 1975--with a concluding section that traces U.S.-Vietnam relations from the end of the war in 1975 to the present. Unlike most general histories of U.S. involvement in Vietnam--which are either conventional diplomatic or military histories--this volume synthesizes the perspectives to explore both dimensions of the struggle in greater depth, elucidating more of the complexities of the U.S.-Vietnam entanglement. It explains why Americans tried so hard for so long to stop the spread of Communism into Indochina, and why they failed. Key topics: The Fall of Saigon: The End as Prelude. Vietnam: A Place and A People. The Elephant and the Tiger. An Experiment in Nation Building. Raising the Stakes. Going to War. The Chain of Thunders. The Year of the Monkey. A War to End a War. The End of the Tunnel. Market: For anyone curious to know about the long American involvement in Southeast Asia, 1942-1975.

An authoritative historical assessment of american foreign policy in a crucial postwar decade. William Bundy's magisterial book focuses on the controversial record of Richard Nixon's and Henry Kissinger's often overpraised foreign policy of 1969 to 1973, an era that has rightly been described as the hinge on which the last half of the century turned. Bundy's principled, clear-eyed assessment in effect pulls together all the major issues and events of the thirty-year span from the 1940s to the end of the Vietnam War, and makes it clear just how dangerous the consequences of Nixon and Kissinger's deceptive modus operandi were.