S. Tucker – The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Second edition)

Автор: S. Tucker
Название книги: The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Second edition)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Военная история
Страницы: 2040
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Now in its second edition, this comprehensive study of the Vietnam War sheds more light on the longest and one of the most controversial conflicts in U.S. history.

• Includes many photographs and illustrations that bring the Vietnam War to life

• Contains more than 200 primary sources in a separate documents volume, with full introductions for each

• Presents an extensive chronology of historic events and a glossary of terms

• Provides cross-references and bibliographies that facilitate further research

Until the Iraq War that began in 2003, the Vietnam War was to
many the most controversial of U.S. military conflicts. No U.S. war
since the 1861–1865 American Civil War has sparked so much
public debate and protest, and the Vietnam War continues to
impact public policy. Democratic Party candidate Senator John
Kerry’s Vietnam War service and his subsequent antiwar activities
became a major issue in the 2004 U.S. presidential election,
and some contend that his failure to respond promptly to attacks
by his critics in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth cost him the election.
More recently, the Vietnam War has been much discussed in
the debate over Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, the U.S. military effort
to destroy the Al Qaeda terrorist organization in Afghanistan.
There is an ongoing debate about the reasons behind America’s
involvement in Vietnam and possible lessons to be learned from
the conflict. When Stanley Karnow, author of the best-selling book
Vietnam, was asked by General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander
of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, what lessons he had learned from
studying the war, Karnow reportedly replied that the one lesson
he had learned was that we should not have been there in the first
place. How did the United States come to be involved in Vietnam?
Was the war indeed winnable? If so, what are the tactics and strategies
that might have brought success? What were the major political
influences in the United States? Are there indeed lessons to be
learned from the war that we can apply to other conflicts? These are
but some of the enduring questions.
This encyclopedia seeks to address these issues. It is the second
encyclopedia published by ABC-CLIO on the war. The first,
appearing in 1999, was a three-volume award-winning work of two
volumes of entries and one volume of documents. This new version
follows the same general format of the first but adds an entire
additional volume of entries and updates all entries from the first
edition. It is certainly the most comprehensive reference work on
the war to appear in print. One of the major contributions of the
new edition is that it adds significant new information, heretofore
unavailable in English, on Communist participation in the war in
both the political and military realms. This is evident not only in
the individual entries but also in a number of new documents provided
and translated by Assistant Editor Merle Pribbenow. Unlike
the first version, this new encyclopedia also has detailed introductions
to the 225 documents.
The encyclopedia traces the long history of Vietnam and details
America’s involvement there, beginning in the 19th century. The
encyclopedia also covers the period of French rule including the Indochina
War, during which the seeds of America’s participation in
the Vietnam conflict were sown. The encyclopedia contains entries
on key individuals who fought in the war and who shaped American
policy as well as those who were outspoken proponents and
opponents of U.S. involvement; has detailed descriptions of battles
and campaigns and of weapons systems, ground, sea, and air; and
discusses the contributions of other nations in the conflict and details
the antiwar movement in the United States and its impact on
the conflict. In addition, the encyclopedia has articles on Vietnam
War–related literature and film, a detailed chronology of events, an
extensive bibliography of works on the war, and the most comprehensive
Vietnam War order of battle ever to be published.
I would be remiss without thanking these individuals who
were of special assistance in the first iteration of the encyclopedia:
Professor Michael R. Nichols, then my graduate assistant at Texas
Christian University (TCU) and now a professor at Tarrant County
College, Texas; David Coffey, another TCU graduate student who
is currently chair of the Department of History and Philosophy
at the University of Tennessee at Martin; Nguyen Cong Luan, a
former Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese
Army) officer now residing in California; and Sandra Wittman,
who is now retired but was then the head of library services at Oakton
Community College, Des Plaines, Illinois.
I am also most grateful to Shawn Livingston, MLIS, director of
Information Service at the University of Kentucky Libraries, who has
been able to answer many questions concerning reference citations.
This new edition particularly benefits from the input of four key
individuals. As always, my good right-hand and associate editor
Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., a specialist in 20th-century American history,
has helped solicit contributors, written a number of his own
entries in addition to keeping track of all the contributions, and
helped me edit the whole.
This new edition benefits particularly from three extraordinarily
knowledgeable individuals as assistant editors. Merle L.
Pribbenow II is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Vietnamese
specialist who served in Saigon during 1970–1975. Following
his retirement from the CIA in 1995, Mr. Pribbenow has
worked as an independent researcher and author specializing
in the Vietnam War and as a translator of Vietnamese-language
source materials. He has published numerous articles on the Vietnam
War, and his translation of the official Vietnamese history of
the war was published in 2002 under the title Victory in Vietnam:
The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975.
Lieutenant Colonel USA (Ret.) James H. Willbanks, PhD, is a
retired army officer who served in Vietnam during 1971–1972 as
an adviser with a South Vietnamese infantry division. The author
of a number of books on the Vietnam War, he is the director of the
Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and
General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Major General AUS (Ret.) David T. Zabecki, PhD, served in
Vietnam during 1967–1968 as a rifleman in the 9th Infantry Division.
The author of numerous books of military history, he is editor
emeritus of Vietnam Magazine and an honorary senior research
fellow in war studies at the University of Birmingham in England.
All three assistant editors read the entire manuscript and suggested
numerous changes. All of us in the project have worked very
hard to minimize mistakes. I take full responsibility for any that
may appear.
SPENCER C. TUCKER