Part of the 'Complete Idiot's Guide' series.
Today's US political leaders owe their interest in politics to the Vietnam War. Many of them fought in it, protested it, or worked hard to avoid it. May it never happen again tends to be their motto, and modern US foreign and domestic policies trace their roots back to the debates of the 1960s and early 1970s. Understanding yesterday's Vietnam War means understanding present-day America.
This book is a comprehensive guide to the thirty-year conflict in Southeast Asia that will give older readers an unbiased reminder of their youth and the younger readers the complete story they may not get in their history texts. Was the war necessary to prevent Asia from "domino-ing" into communism? What made this war so different from the ones before it that it gave rise to the largest and most vociferous anti-war movement America has ever experienced. Did it really happen the way they said in 'Platoon', 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Coming Home'?
This book is ideal for anyone who is too young to remember the war but has a curiosity about it and the history of the late sixties/early seventies US history and culture.
