The American Experience in Vietnam: A Reader

This valuable anthology assembled by a teacher at Stanford includes essays and speeches by figures as disparate as Norman Podhoretz, Paul Goodman, Howard Zinn and Martin Luther King Jr. The book covers five areas: American policy in Vietnam, the military in Vietnam, the role of the press, the antiwar movement and the legacy of the war. The sections offer insights into topics such as the American messianic complex, the shameful behavior of many American officers in Southeast Asia, problems of the press with the indigenous regimes and with the U.S. military, the cost of the war at home and abroad. While the concluding segment, on the consequences of Vietnam, is weak and diffuse, the collection provides an important overview. (Nov.)