After Vietnam: Legacies of a Lost War

On May 1, 1998, five Vietnam War experts--Brian Balogh, Robert K. Brigham, George C. Herring, Charles E. Neu and Robert S. McNamara--presented papers at a Johns Hopkins University symposium on that war's legacies. This book contains essays based on those papers. The result is an uneven collection. Neu, who chairs Brown University's history department, offers a brief overall look at the war and some of its ramifications. Balogh, a University of Virginia history professor, weighs in on the domestic legacy. Brigham, a Vassar College history professor, offers a dry, fact-filled report on the war's political legacy in Vietnam. The best essay, by far, is an incisive, enlightening look at the post-Vietnam War U.S. military by University of Kentucky historian Herring. The worst, by far, is McNamara's murky, simplistic presentation of his ""vision of a system of collective security for the twenty-first century,"" in which the former defense secretary barely mentions the war he shaped for eight crucial years, despite his notorious recent self-recriminations. Given that his essay is the main reason many potential readers will pick up the volume, it should perhaps carry a warning label. (June)