Promotional Information

Widely respected experts give a balanced new perspective on the Vietnam War. This text is the first to closely compare and contrast the Gulf and Vietnam Wars on both the war and home fronts.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Vietnam War--A Look Back, A Look Ahead by William Head
Background and Overview
Vietnam and Its Wars: An Historical Overview of U.S. Involvement by William Head
The Global Dimensions and Legacies of a Brushfire War by Marc Jason Gilbert
Decision Making and Policy Makers
The Johnson Administration's Conduct of Limited War in Vietnam by George Herring
From the Tonkin Gulf to the Persian Gulf: The Devolution of the Senate's Role in War Making by Caroline Ziemke
China and the Revisionist Thesis by John Garver
The Air War
Bombing Our Way Back Home: The Commando Hunt and Menu Campaigns of 1969-1973 by Earl H. Tilford, Jr.
Of Demons, Storms, and Thunder: A Preliminary Look at Vietnam's Impact on the Persian Gulf Air Campaign by Mark Clodfelter
North Vietnamese Air Defenses During the Vietnam War by Douglas Pike
The Ground War
If At First You Don't Succeed, Try to Rewrite History: Revisionism and the Vietnam War by John M. Gates
Everything is Perfect and Getting Better: The Myths and Measures of the American Ground War in Indochina, 1965-1968 by Larry Cable
Legacies
The Lessons and Ghosts of Vietnam by Lorenzo Crowell
Reflections on the Vietnam War: The Views of a Vietnamese on Vietnamese-American Misconceptions by Bui Diem
Selected Bibliography
Index

About the Author

WILLIAM HEAD is Associate Editor for Asia of The Journal of Third World Studies. He is also Historian for the U.S. Air Force at Robins Air Force Base. He is the author of the AF monograph Reworking the Workhorse: The C-141B Stretch Modification Program and an Air Power History article Puff the Magic Dragon: A History of the AC-47 Gunship, among other works on Asian and U.S. military history.

LAWRENCE E. GRINTER, Asian Historian and Professor for the U.S. Air Force Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, is the editor of American War in Vietnam (Greenwood, 1987), among other studies of the Vietnam War.