The War That Never Ends: New Perspectives on the Vietnam War (review)

No scholar of the Vietnam War deserves a festschrift more than George C. Herring. As the author of several important articles and books, Herring has long been the most authoritative scholarly voice on the history of American intervention in Vietnam. His book America's Longest War, the single most successful and influential survey of the conflict, is now in its fourth edition; the first was published nearly thirty years ago. It is entirely fitting, then, that two other leading historians of the war, David L. Anderson and John Ernst, have asked several of their colleagues to contribute to a collection of essays in Herring's honor. Although the result, The War That Never Ends, betrays the customary inconsistency of edited volumes, overall it will stand as both an enduring tribute to an important historian and a significant scholarly contribution in its own right.

Despite its quality, the book's subtitle, New Perspectives on the Vietnam War, does not always live up to its promise. For example, Anderson's own essay is strikingly similar to his 2005 presidential address before the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, which was subsequently published in the January 2006 issue of Diplomatic History. Although Robert Buzzanco has added a poignant coda on the Iraq War, his chapter on military dissent basically offers a summary of his important 1996 book on the same subject, Masters of War. Similarly, Robert Topmiller's essay on the Buddhist antiwar movement in South Vietnam provides a condensed account of his excellent 2002 book on the same subject, The Lotus Unleashed. Even less new is Sandra Taylor's chapter on the role of Vietnamese women in the war, which is simply reprinted here from another edited collection, Kenton Clymer's The Vietnam War, published in 1998. Although these chapters are all valuable, they are not exactly "new perspectives."

Several chapters revisit old ground in fresh ways; others present genuinely new contributions. The book's essays fall into three categories, all of which are valuable: politically informed reflections, scholarly articles, and historical and historiographical overviews. Two essays that are essentially extended op-ed articles begin and end the book. Marilyn Young's introductory chapter is a brief but insightful examination of the enduring political legacy of the war and its controversies. Having failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam, and having failed to come to terms with its legacy, Americans are now repeating their Indochina agonies in the Middle East. Howard Zinn closes the book by also linking Vietnam to Iraq. The bulk of his contribution is a reprint of a suggested speech, announcing the unconditional withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam, that he drafted for Lyndon Johnson and published in his 1967 book Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal. For this version, he has added a very short introduction that highlights what he sees as the similarities between the foreign and military policies of Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush.

Several of the book's scholarly articles present new interpretations of old issues and debates. The best are Gary R. Hess's examination of the international context of the Johnson administration's decision-making, Robert K. Brigham's reevaluation of Ho Chi Minh's ideological moorings, and Joseph A. Fry's evaluation of the antiwar movement. Hess uses the notorious "More Flags" campaign, in which the Johnson administration unsuccessfully solicited allied participation, to highlight the war's diplomatic difficulties and lack of international legitimacy. Turning much of the existing consensus on its head, Brigham challenges the view that Ho was deeply influenced by Confucianism and that the nationalist-Communist movement he led against France, the United States, and South Vietnam had such wide appeal because of its successful blending of traditional Confucian precepts with modern Communist ideology. Instead, Brigham argues, Ho's appeal was rooted more exclusively in the successful everyday application of the elements of socialist theory, especially land reform, that would most strongly resonate with...