Vietnam War Bibliography:

Public Opinion

Thomas E. Allen III, "Some University Students View the Vietnam War: A Search for the Roots of Support and Opposition." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Emory, 1972. 246 pp. 72-25,931. Based on surveys of students at Stetson University.

Allen H. Barton, "The Columbia Crisis: Campus, Vietnam, and the Ghetto." Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol 32 (Fall 1968), pp. 331-351.

Adam J. Berinsky, In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 360 pp.

Mary Charlotte Brennan, Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

Richard A. Brody, et. al., Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam (ICPR Study 7295). Surveys takin in the first quarter of 1966. Ann Arbor: Inter-University Consortium for Political Research, 1972, reprinted 1975.

Steven Casey, When Soldiers Fall: How Americans Have Confronted Combat Losses from World War I to Afghanistan. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. x, 310 pp. Vietnam is pp. 138-200, and the "Vietnam Syndrome" is pp. 200-204.

Philip E. Converse, et. al, American Social Attitudes Data Sourcebook, 1947-1978. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Eric R. Crouse, ed., Dear Senator Smith: Small-Town Maine Writes to Senator Margaret Chase Smith about the Vietnam War, 1967-1971. Lexington Books, 2007. 240 pp.

Hazel Erskine, "The Polls: Is War a Mistake?" Public Opinion Quarterly, 34:1 (Spring 1970), pp. 134-150.

Hazel Erskine, "The Polls: Opinion of the News Media," Public Opinion Quarterly, 34:4 (Winter 1970-1971), pp. 630-43.

Gallup Polls

J. Justin Gustainis, American Rhetoric and the Vietnam War. Westport: Praeger, 1993. xvii, 192 pp. Discusses both pro-war and anti-war rhetoric.

Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, Paying the human costs of war: American public opinion and casualties in military conflicts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. xiv, 289 pp.

The Harris Survey Yearbook of Public Opinion. New York: Louis Harris and Associates, 1970-73 (and perhaps other years?).

Rebecca E. Hlatch, A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right, and the 1960s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 386 pp.

Frank F. Koscielski, "Divided Loyalties: American Unions and the Vietnam War." Ph.D. dissertation, History, Wayne State University, 1997. 238 pp. DA 9815322.

Frank F. Koscielski, Divided Loyalties: American Unions and the Vietnam War. Garland, 1999. 200 pp.

Jean-Michel Lacroix and Jean Cazemajou, eds., La guerre du Vietnam et l'opinion publique Américaine (1961-1973). Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1991. 199 pp. Includes essays on economic factors, etc., not just public opinion.

Eric V. Larson, Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Role of Casualties in Domestic Support for U.S. Military Operations.  Santa Monica: Rand, 1996.  MR-726-RC.  xxvii, 126 pp. Rand has placed the full text online.

Mark A. Lorell, Charles Kelley, Deborah R. Hensler, Casualties, Public Opinion, and Presidential Policy During the Vietnam War. Santa Monica: Rand, 1984. R-3060-AF. xv, 92 pp.

William L. Lunch and Peter W. Sperlich, "American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam," Western Political Quarterly, 32:1 (March 1979), pp. 21-44.

Stewart Meachum and Kenneth D. Wells, Vietnam: Opposing Viewpoints. Philadelphia: KYW News Radio, 1969 or 1970. 14pp. Transcript of broadcast answers to questions posed by the radio station, by Meachum (of American Friends Service Committee, opposing U.S. policy) and Wells (of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, supporting U.S. policy).

John Mecklin, "Problems of Communication in a Crisis Situation: A Case Study of the Role of Public Opinion in the Vietnam Conflict." Full text in Modern Communications and Foreign Policy, report of the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1967, pp. 19-21. There is an interesting statement of the domino theory on p. 19. The whole report has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University. Mecklin's report is split between the first two sections: front matter and pp. 1-19, pp. 20-60.

Joseph G. Morgan, The Vietnam Lobby: The American Friends of Vietnam, 1955-1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. xviii, 229 pp. Originally an ideologically diverse group established to promote American support for Ngo Dinh Diem. Later became predominantly right-wing. The full text is available online if you browse the Internet through an institution that is affiliated with netLibrary, or if you are a paid subscriber of Questia.. The full text of my review of Morgan's book, written for H-Diplo, is available online.

Charles C. Moskos, Jr., ed., Public Opinion and the Military Establishment. Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1971. xvi, 294 pp.

John E. Mueller, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion. New York: Wiley, 1973.

Robert W. Mullen, "An Analysis of the Issues Developed by Select Black Americans on the War in Vietnam." Ph.D. dissertation, Speech, Ohio State, 1971. 411 pp. 72-4591. Apparently a good deal of emphasis on Martin Luther King, Jr.

Seth Offenbach, The Conservative Movement and the Vietnam War: The Other Side of Vietnam. New York: Routledge, 2019. viii, 220 pp.

Seth Offenbach, "Defending Freedom in Vietnam: A Conservative Dilemma," in Laura Jane Gifford and Daniel K. Williams, eds., The Right Side of the Sixties: Reexamining Conservativism's Decade of Transformation (2012).

Seth Offenbach, "Mourning a Loss: Conservative Support for Ngo Dinh Diem," Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 2019.

Thomas Powers, The War at Home: Vietnam and the American People, 1964-1968. Grossman, 1973.

Harold E. Quinley, "The Protestant Clergy and the War in Vietnam," Public Opinion Quarterly, 34:1 (Spring 1970), pp. 43-52.

Roper Center Public Opinion Archives at the University Of Connecticut.

Sandra Scanlon, The Pro-war Movement: Domestic Support for the Vietnam War and the Making of Modern American Conservatism. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. xiii, 424 pp.

Frederick A. Schiff, "Themes and Counter-Themes in Middle Class Political Disagreements on the War in Viet Nam." Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA, Sociology, 1970. 275 pp. 71-10,649. The abstract looks very good.

Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Eugene M. Schreiber, "American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam, 1964-1968." Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, Princeton, 1971. 249 pp. 72-2747. Indicates that there was no strong correlation of pro- or anti-war sentiment to any of the obvious variables. Data came mostly from the Michigan Survey Research Center.

Richard Sobel, The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam: Constraining the Colossus. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. xii, 276 pp. Despite the title, about a fifth of the book deals with Vietnam. But according to a review on H-Diplo, not very well.

Sarah J. Thelen, "Friends on the Outside: The Nixon White House and Mobilizing Support for the War i Vietnam, 1969-74." Ph.D. dissertation, American University, 2012. DA 3540412.

Robert R. Tomes, Apocalypse Then: American Intellectuals and the Vietnam War, 1954-1975. New York: New York University Press, 1998. xi, 293 pp.

Sidney Verba and Richard A. Brody, "Participation, Policy Preferences, and the War in Vietnam," Public Opinion Quarterly, 34:3 (Autumn 1970), pp. 325-32.

Vietnam Perspectives. Journal published quarterly by American Friends of Vietnam (see under Morgan, above) from August 1965 to November 1967. Available through JSTOR. After a hiatus it was replaced by Southeast Asian Perspectives, published 1971 to 1974, also available on JSTOR, most issues of which consisted of a single long article.

C. Dale Walton, "Victory Through Villainization: Atrocity, Global Opinion, and Insurgent Strategic Advantage," Civil Wars 14:1 (March 2012), pp. 123-140. I am not impressed.

Gary R. Weaver, "The American Public and Viet Nam: An In Depth Study of the American People in Times of International Conflict." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, American University, 1970. 236 pp. 71-8628. The abstract gives the impression that this is historical theorizing, maybe without much use of survey data.

Jules Witcover, The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America. New York: Warner, 1997. 544 pp.

Elisse Yvette Wright, "Birds of a Different Feather: African American Support for the Vietnam War in the Johnson Years, 1965-1969." Ph.D. dissertation, History, Ohio State University, 2002. 314 pp. AAT 3059352. The full text is available online if you are browsing the Internet from an institution, such as Clemson University, that has a subscription to ProQuest "Dissertations and Theses: Full Text."

 

The Role of Religion

George Bogaski, American Protestants and the Debate over the Vietnam War: Evil Was Loose in the World. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. xvii, 207 pp.

Don Fredric Colenback, "Christian Moral Argument and United States Policy in Viet Nam." Ph.D. dissertation, Religion, Yale, 1975. 452 pp. 75-24512. Deals with both anti-war and pro-war moralists.

Scott Eric Flipse, "Bearing the Cross of Vietnam: Humanitarianism, Religion, and the American Commitment to South Vietnam, 1952-1975." Ph.D. dissertation, History, University of Notre Dame, 2003. 476 pp. AAT 3078485. Deals with the role of groups such as Catholic Relief Services, Mennonite Central Committee, Church World Service, and International Voluntary Services.

Jeremy Gunn, Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009. xi, 296 pp. Chapter 8, "Religion and the Origins of American Involvement in Vietnam," is pp. 155-196.

Carey B. Joynt, Richard D. Shewmaker, Charles C. West, et. al., Vietnam: The Christian--The Gospel--The Church. Philadelphia: Office of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1967. vii, 197 pp. Fairly sympathetic to U.S. government policy.

Angela M. Lahr, Millenial Dreams and Apocalyptic Nightmares: The Cold War Origins of Political Evangelicalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. viii, 281 pp.

Timothy D. Padgett, Swords and Plowshares: American Evangelicals on War, 1937-1973. Lexham Press, 2018. 440 pp.

David Earl Settje, "Has the Tiger Changed its Stripes? Lutheran Responses to the Cold War, Fears of Internal Communist Threats, and the Vietnam War, 1964-1975." Ph.D. dissertation, History, Kent State, 2001. AAT 3006163. 285 pp. The full text is available online if you are browsing the Internet from an institution, such as Clemson University, that has a subscription to ProQuest "Dissertations and Theses: Full Text."

David E. Settje, Lutherans and the Longest War: Adrift on a Sea of Doubt about the Cold and Vietnam Wars. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. x, 221 pp.

David E. Settje, Faith and War: How Christians Debated the Cold and Vietnam Wars. New York: NYU Press, 2011. xi, 231 pp. Deals with the period 1964-1975.

Gregory Dale Tomlin, "Hawks and Doves: Southern Baptist Responses to Military Intervention in Southeast Asia, 1965-1973." Ph.D. dissertation, History of Religion, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003. 282 pp. AAT 3082517. The full text is available online if you are browsing the Internet from an institution, such as Clemson University, that has a subscription to ProQuest "Dissertations and Theses: Full Text."

 

See also US Policy

See also The Media

See also The Antiwar Movement and The Catholic Antiwar Movement.

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Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, Edwin E. Moise. This document may be reproduced only by permission. Revised September 18, 2023.