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A Vietnam War Reader: A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives by Michael H. Hunt, Ed., (The North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC. 2010) 256 pages, $59.95, ISBN 978-08078-5991-9
One of the characteristics of a good book is the presentation of both sides to a story. This is what the author has done in providing a masterful commentary of the Vietnam War and the American involvement in it. He has gathered a wide variety of viewpoints and sources of information about one of America's most controversial wars showing the reader how it affected many different individuals. The uniqueness of the book is that we as Americans and others get important insights into how the North Vietnamese viewed the war, what they did, and how it affected them. However, there is also considerable coverage of how it affected the Americans who served in that controversial war.
The book, however, is not just about America's relation to the war or Vietnamese participation in it. For example, the author begins the work with a basic chronology of events affecting Vietnam and ends it with American diplomatic relations being established with Vietnam in 1995. The amount of information found in the book before the huge American military presence comes about is quite interesting and valuable because it helps to understand the motivation and characteristics of the Vietnamese people. What we see is a country dominated for a long time by foreigners and exploited in various ways by outsiders. We also see a strong sense of unity among the people, coupled with a feeling of nationalism, and a desire for independence. For...