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Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975. By John Prados. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009. xxx, 665 pp. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-7006-1634-3.)
John Prados, the author of several specialized studies, contends that the Vietnam War continues to generate seemingly endless arguments because the scholarship is "atomized" - dominated by narrow monographs debating small points - without adequate consideration of the long sweep of time and the role of all of the actors (p. xii). Consequently, he has produced a massive, comprehensive chronicle that scans well-studied topics, such as Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 decisions to escalate the American war and the presidential politics of 1968, and also analyzes lesser-known subjects, such as the internal politics of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the inside workings of the Vietnam Veterans against...