B.A. (1967), History, Harvard University
M.A. (1972), Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan
Ph.D. (1977), History, University of Michigan
ROTC Workshop in Military History, U.S.M.A., West Point, summer 1982.
1969-70 (two full years): U.S. Peace Corps, Miri, Sarawak, East Malaysia. Teaching History, Economics, Mathematics, and English, first form (equivalent to U.S. junior high) to upper sixth form (equivalent to U.S. junior college).
1976-77: Instructor in History, Appalachian State University.
1978: Adjunct Professor of History, University of Detroit
1979-present: Clemson University (Visiting Assistant Professor 1979-81, Assistant Professor 1981-84, Associate Professor 1984-88, Professor 1988-).
Land Reform in China and North Vietnam: Consolidating the Revolution at the Village Level. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
Modern China: A History. London and New York: Longman, 1986.
Second edition: London and New York: Longman, 1994. Third Edition: London and New York: Longman, 2008.
Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Revised in important ways: Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, revised edition. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2019.
Historical Dictionary of the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001.
The A to Z of the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005. (A revised and updated version of the historical dictionary.)
The Myths of Tet: The Most Misunderstood Event of the Vietnam War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017.
"Land Reform and Land Reform Errors in North Vietnam", Pacific Affairs, 49:1 (Spring 1976), pp. 70-92. The text is available to subscribers on JSTOR.
"Downward Social Mobility in Pre-revolutionary China", Modern China, 3:1 (January 1977), pp. 3-31. The text is available to subscribers on JSTOR.
"Radical, Moderate and Optimal Patterns of Land Reform", Modern China, 4:1 (January 1978), pp. 79-90. The text and errata are available to subscribers on JSTOR.
"Class-ism in Vietnam", in William S. Turley, ed., Vietnamese Communism in Comparative Perspective, Westview Press, 1980, pp. 91-105. Online to paid subscribers of Questia.
"The Moral Economy Dispute" (review essay), Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 14:1 (January-March 1982), pp. 72-77. The text is available online through Taylor & Francis.
"Why Westmoreland Gave Up" (review essay), Pacific Affairs, 58:4 (winter 1985-86), pp. 663-73. The text is available to subscribers on JSTOR.
"Nationalism and Communism in Vietnam", Journal of Third World Studies, V:2 (Fall 1988), pp. 6-22.
"Tonkin Gulf: Reconsidered", in William Cogar, ed., New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), pp. 304-22.
"JFK and the Myth of Withdrawal," in Marilyn B. Young and Robert Buzzanco, eds., A Companion to the Vietnam War (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), pp. 162-173.
"The Mirage of Negotiations," in Lloyd Gardner and Ted Gittinger, eds., The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964-1968 (Texas A&M University Press, 2004), pp. 73-82.
"The Myths of the Tet Offensive," in Michael Aung-Thwin and Kenneth R. Hall, eds., New Perspectives on the History and Historiography of Southeast Asia: Continuing Explorations (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 229-254.
"Chinese Public Policy: State-Society Relations in Historical Perspective," in Sujian Guo, ed., State-Society Relations and Governance in China (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), pp. 71-80.
"Tonkin Gulf in Historical Perspective," Passport (the newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations), 45:2 (September 2014), pp. 46-50.
"The War in Numbers," in Lien-Hang T. Nguyen and Andrew Preston, eds., Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, volume II (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2024).
Ainslie T. Embree, ed., Encyclopedia of Asian History, 4 vols. (New York: Scribner's, 1988):
"Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives" (vol. I, pp. 21–22)
"Agriculture, Collectivization of" (vol. I, pp. 26–28)
"Geneva Conference of 1954" (vol. I, p. 495) [the multiple errors in this one were put there by an editor; they were not in the version I wrote]
"Indochina War, 1959–1975" (vol. II, pp. 134–37)
"Land Tenure and Reform: Land Reform in Modern China" (vol. II, pp. 392–94)
"Paris Peace Conference" (vol. III, p. 209)
"Sino-Vietnamese Relations" (vol. III, pp. 478–79)
John Johnson, ed., Encyclopedia of Historic U.S. Court Cases, 1640–1990 (New York: Garland, 1992; 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2001):
"Did CBS Libel General Westmoreland?", pp. 544–47 (pp. 928–31 in 2d ed.)
"The Pentagon Papers", pp. 726–32 (918–24 in 2d ed.)
Spencer C. Tucker, ed., Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1998).
"Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords (1954)", I:241–42.
"Land Reform", I:357–58.
"Order of Battle Dispute (1967)", II:543–44.
"Pentagon Papers and Trial (1971)", II:559–61.
"PIERCE ARROW, Operation (1964)", II:573.
"Tonkin Gulf Incidents (1964)", II:694–95.
"Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964)", II:695.
"Gulf of Tonkin Incidents", in John W. Chambers II, ed., The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 307.
James I. Matray, ed., East Asia and the United States: An Encyclopedia of Relations since 1784, 2 vols. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002).
"Domino Theory", pp. 133-34.
"First Indochina War", pp. 161-62.
"Gulf of Tonkin Incidents", pp. 207-8.
"My Lai Massacre", pp. 411-12.
"National Liberation Front", pp. 416-17.
"OPLAN 34A", p. 454.
"Phoenix Program", p. 483.
"Second Indochina War", pp. 539–41.
"Viet Cong", pp. 657–58.
"Vietminh", pp 658–59.
"The Domino Theory", in Alexander DeConde et. al., eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, 2d ed. (New York: Scribners, 2002), vol. 1, pp. 551–559.
"The Pentagon Papers," in John P. Resch, et al., eds., Americans at War, vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan, 2004).
Yuwu Song, ed., Encyclopedia of Chinese-American Relations (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006).
"Cambodia", p. 49.
"First Indochina War", pp. 106–107.
"Geneva Conference (1954)", pp. 117–118.
"Geneva Conference (1961–1962)", pp. 118–119.
"Laos", pp. 168–169.
"Peiping", p. 218.
"Second Indochina War", pp. 248–249.
"United Nations", p. 295.
"Vietnam", pp. 299–300.
"Iraq–U.S. War," in William A. Darity Jr., ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2d ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), vol. 4, pp. 145–148.
Ruud van Dijk et al., eds., Encyclopedia of the Cold War (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), vol. 1.
"Bao Dai", pp. 67–68.
"Gulf of Tonkin Resolution", pp. 395–96.
"Ho Chi Minh", pp. 409–12.
"Vietnam War (1959–1975)," in Gordon Martel, ed., Encyclopedia of War (Chichester, West Sussex, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), vol. 5, pp. 2329–2340.
"Vietnam War (1959–1975)," in Gordon Martel, ed., Twentieth-Centrury War and Conflict: A Concise Encyclopedia (Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley, 2015), pp. 218–26. A slightly revised version of the preceding item.
"Johnson y el problema de Vietnam," in Desperta Ferro, November–December 2014, pp. 6–10. I wrote this in English as "President Johnson Confronts the Problem of Vietnam"; the editor of the magazine translated it into Spanish.
"Lyndon Johnson's War Propaganda" Op-ed published online by the New York Times, November 20, 2017.
James H. Willbanks, ed., Vietnam War: A Topical Exploration and Primary Source Collection (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2018).
"Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954" (pp. 20–24)
"Gulf of Tonkin Incident" (pp. 146–148)
"Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" (pp. 148–150)
"Pierce Arrow, Operation" (pp. 156–158)
"Order of Battle Dispute" (pp. 279–281)
"The Tet Offensive Was Just the Beginning" Op-ed published online by the New York Times, February 1, 2018.
"Nhung hieu lam cua nguoi My ve Tet Mau Than" I wrote this in English as "Americans Misunderstanding the Tet Offensive." The BBC translated it and published it on the BBC Vietnamese language web site on February 27, 2018.
"Tet in the News," Vietnam magazine, February 2019, pp. 30-37.
We Came to Help, by Monika Schwinn and Bernhard Diehl. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. In Pacific Affairs, 50:4 (Winter 1977–78), pp. 738–39.
The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam, by Samuel L. Popkin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. In Journal of Asian History, 14:2 (1981), pp. 172–73.
The Chinese Welfare System, 1949–1979, by John Dixon. New York: Praeger, 1981. In History: Reviews of New Books, 10:3 (January 1982), p. 75.
The Endless War: Fifty Years of Struggle in Vietnam, by James P. Harrison. New York: Macmillan, 1982. In History: Reviews of New Books, 10:9 (August 1982), pp. 235–36.
Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945, by David Marr. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. In Pacific Affairs, 55:3 (Fall 1982), pp. 536–38.
Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945, by Huynh Kim Khanh. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982. In History: Reviews of New Books 11:4 (February 1983), p. 96.
Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961–1971, by William A. Buckingham, Jr. Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1982. In Aerospace Historian 30:3 (September 1983), p. 217.
Peasant China in Transition: The Dynamics of Development Toward Socialism, 1949–1956, by Vivienne Shue. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. In American Historical Review 89:1 (February 1984), 184–85.
The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Tactical Airlift, by Ray L. Bowers. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History and U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983. In Aerospace Historian 31:2 (June 1984), 154.
Charles Callison, Land-to-the-Tiller in the Mekong Delta. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983. Pacific Affairs 57:4 (Winter 1984–85), pp. 730–31.
"Recent Accounts of the Vietnam War" (review essay), Journal of Asian Studies 44:2 (February 1985), pp. 343-48.
"Vietnam: A Television History" (13 episodes). Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 1983.
Stanley Karnow,
Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking, 1983. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin, 1984.
James Pinckney Harrison,
The Endless War: Vietnam's Struggle for Independence. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.
R. B. Smith,
An International History of the Vietnam War, Vol. 1, Revolution versus Containment, 1955-61. New York: St. Martin's, 1983.
Ronald H. Spector,
Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941-1960. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1983. In the series
The United States Army in Vietnam.
Combined review of two books in London Review of Books 8:20 (November 20, 1986), p. 19:
Alan Winnington,
Breakfast with Mao: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent.
London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1986.
Tiziano Terzani,
Behind the Forbidden Door: Travels in China.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1986.
William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954–1975. Boulder: Westview Press, 1986. Pacific Affairs, 60:1 (Spring 1987), pp. 138–39.
Bob Brewin and Sydney Shaw, Vietnam on Trial: Westmoreland vs. CBS. New York: Atheneum, 1987. Pacific Affairs, 60:2 (Summer 1987), pp. 373–74.
Allan E. Goodman, The Search for a Negotiated Settlement of the Vietnam War. Berkeley: University of California, 1986 (Institute of East Asian Studies, Indochina Research Monograph No. 2). Pacific Affairs, 60:2 (Summer 1987), pp. 374–75.
Col. Gerald H. Turley, The Easter Offensive: Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1985. 344 pp. Journal of Third World Studies, 4:2 (Fall 1987), pp. 186–88.
Paul Gordon Lauren, ed., The China Hands' Legacy: Ethics and Diplomacy. Boulder and London: Westview, 1987. Journal of Third World Studies, 5:2 (Fall 1988), pp. 210–14.
Andrew Vickerman, The Fate of the Peasantry: Premature Transition to Socialism in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1986. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 20:1 (March 1989), pp. 155–57.
Anthony James Joes, The War for South Vietnam: 1954–1975. New York: Praeger, 1989. Journal of Asian Studies, 49:1 (February 1990), pp. 209–10.
Combined review of two books in Journal of Asian Studies, 49:4 (November 1990), pp. 986–88.
William Colby with James McCargar, Lost Victory: A Firsthand
Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989.
Phillip B. Davidson,
Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988.
"War and Revolution in Vietnam" (review essay), Asian Studies Review 14:2 (November 1990), pp. 214-17.
Greg Lockhart,
Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People's Army of Vietnam. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1989.
Carlyle A. Thayer,
War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Vietnam 1954-60. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1989.
Combined review of two books in Journal of Asian Studies, 50:4 (November 1991), pp. 983–85:
Dale Andrade, Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990.
Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program. New York: Morrow, 1990.
Douglas Pike, ed., The Bunker Papers: Reports to the President from Vietnam, 1967–1973. 3 vols. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1990. In Journal of Asian Studies, 52:1 (February 1993), pp. 222–23.
Eric M. Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic Lighting: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993. In Journal of Asian Studies, 52:4 (November 1993), pp. 1072–73.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. In History: Reviews of New Books, 22:2 (Winter 1994), pp. 84–85.
William Head and Lawrence E. Grinter, eds., Looking Back on the Vietnam War: A 1990s Perspective on the Decisions, Combat, and Legacies. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993. In Journal of Asian Studies, 53:2 (May 1994), pp. 629–30.
Sam Adams, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1994. In Journal of Asian Studies, 53:4 (November 1994), pp. 1312–13.
Edward P. Metzner, More than a Soldier's War: Pacification in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. In Journal of Asian Studies, 55:4 (November 1996), pp. 1070–71.
Jeffrey D. Glasser, The Secret Vietnam War: The United States Air Force in Thailand, 1961–1975. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. In Journal of Asian Studies, 56:3 (August 1997), pp. 848–49.
David M. Barrett, ed., Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam Papers: A Documentary Collection. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. Electronic review on H-Pol (Pol@h-net.msu.edu), November 1998.
Francis X. Winters, The Year of the Hare: America in Vietnam, January 25, 1963-February 15, 1964. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. In American Historical Review, 104:1 (February 1999), p. 226.
Ray Huang, China: A Macro History. Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. In The China Quarterly, no. 153 (March 1998), pp. 182–83.
Robert Buzzanco, Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. In Journal of Asian Studies, 57:2 (May 1998), pp. 597–98.
Wilfred Deac, Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970–1975. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. In Pacific Historical Review, 68:1 (February 1999), pp. 132–33.
John Prados, The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War. New York: Wiley, 1999. In American Historical Review, February 2000, pp. 194–95.
Harold A. Winters et. al., Battling the Elements: Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. In Historical Geography, vol. 28 (2000), pp. 278–79.
Ezra Y. Siff, Why the Senate Slept: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Beginning of the Vietnam War. Westport: Praeger, 1999. In Canadian Journal of History, vol. XXXV, August 2000, pp. 382–84.
Charles E. Neu, ed., After Vietnam: Legacies of a Lost War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Electronic review on H-Diplo (H-DIPLO@H-NET.MSU.EDU), January 2001.
Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. In Pacific Historical Review, 70:1 (February 2001), pp. 171–72.
Mark Bradley, Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam, 1919–1950. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. In Pacific Historical Review, 71:1 (February 2002), pp. 166–67.
George W. Allen, None So Blind: A Personal Account of Intelligence Failure in Vietnam. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001. Electronic review on H-Diplo (H-DIPLO@H-NET.MSU.EDU), July 2002.
"Better Late than Never? The Delayed Debate over the Costs of Vietnam" (review essay),
Journal of Cold War Studies, 5:2 (Spring 2003), pp. 73-77.
The text
is available to subscribers on Project Muse.
Jeffrey W. Helsing,
Johnson's War/Johnson's Great Society: The Guns and Butter Trap. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000.
Marc Jason Gilbert,
The Vietnam War on Campus: Other Voices, More Distant Drums. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001.
Marc Jason Gilbert, ed., Why the North Won the Vietnam War. New York: Palgrave, 2002. In American Historical Review, 108:3 (June 2003), pp. 805–6.
Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. New York: Viking, 2002. In Intelligence and National Security, 18:3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 202-204.
Robert J. Topmiller, The Lotus Unleashed: The Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam, 1964-1966. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002. In The International History Review, XXVI:1 (March 2004), pp. 208-210.
"The Vietnam War: Scholars and Witnesses" (review essay). Pacific Affairs, 78:4 (Winter 2005-2006), pp. 631-37.
Philip E. Catton,
Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
Daved W. P. Elliott,
The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003. 2 vols.
Gerald C. Hickey,
Window on a War: An Anthropologist in the Vietnam Conflict. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002.
Robert Hopkins Miller,
Vietnam and Beyond: A Diplomat's Cold War Education. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002.
Gareth Porter, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Review in Passport: The Newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, 37:2 (August 2006), pp. 6-9.
Virginia Morris with Clive Hills, A History of the Ho Chi Minh Trail: The Road to Freedom. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2006. In Pacific Affairs, 79:3 (Fall 2006), pp. 558-59.
Lawrence W. Serewicz,
America at the Brink of Empire: Rusk,
Kissinger, and the Vietnam War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. x,
233 pp. Electronic review
on H-1960s David Schmitz,
The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, and Public Opinion.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. In Pacific Historical Review,
76:2 (May 2007), pp. 333-334.
Seth Jacobs,
Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War
in Vietnam, 1950-1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. In
Journal of American History, 94:2 (September 2007), pp. 641-42.
William Thomas Allison,
The Tet Offensive: A Brief History with Documents. New York and
London: Routledge, 2008. In Journal of Military History, 73:1 (January 2009), pp. 326-27.
David Hunt,
Vietnam's Southern Revolution: From Peasant Insurrection to Total War, 1959-1968. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,
2008. Electronic review on H-Diplo, August 27, 2009.
Yafeng Xia,
Negotiating with the Enemy: U.S.-China Talks during the Cold War,
1949-1972. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. In Diplomatic History, 34:1 (January 2010), pp. 225-228.
Combined review of three books in War in History, 17:3 (July 2010), pp. 352-54:
Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young, eds., Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Local, National, and Transnational
Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. In Journal of Cold War Studies, 12:4 (Fall 2010),
pp. 197-99.
Mai Elliott,
RAND in Southeast Asia. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2010. Review published electronically in an
H-Diplo/International Security Studies Forum roundtable, December 1, 2010.
Review essay on Bernd Greiner, War Without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), in
Journal of Cold War Studies, 13:3 (Summer 2011), pp. 190-196. Response to Bernd Greiner in 14:1 (Winter 2012), pp. 111-113.
Jay Veith,
Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75. New York: Encounter Books, 2012. In Journal of Cold War Studies, 16:1 (Winter 2014), pp. 251-53.
Pierre Asselin,
Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Review published electronically as part of an
H-Diplo
roundtable, September 9, 2014.
Gregory Daddis, Westmoreland's War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). Review published
electronically as part of an
H-Diplo
roundtable, February 18, 2015.
"Vietnam: The Early Stages." Review essay in History: Reviews of New Books, 43:2 (April 2015), pp. 55-58. The text
is online to at least some users at Taylor & Francis.
Anthony James Joes,
Why South Vietnam Fell. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. In Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 17, no. 3 (summer 2015), pp. 295-97.
Xiaoming Zhang,
Deng Xiaoping's Long War: The Military Conflict between China and Vietnam, 1979-1991. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Michigan War Studies Review, May 5, 2016.
Nicholas Tarling,
The British and the Vietnam War: Their Way with LBJ. Singapore: NUS Press, 2017. In Pacific Affairs, 91:2 (June 2018), pp. 424-26.
text available online.
Max Hastings,
Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975. New York: HarperCollins, 2018. In Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, January 2019, p. 80.
Martin G. Clemis,
The Control War: The Struggle for South Vietnam, 1968-1975. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. In Journal of Military History,
83:2 (April 2019), pp. 628-29.
Howard Jones,
My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. In English Historical Review, August 2019, pp. 1063-65.
Eric Setzekorn,
The Rise and Fall of an Officer Corps: The Republic of China Military, 1942-1955. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. In Journal of American History, 106:2 (September 2019), p. 504.
Robert K. Brigham, Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam. New York: PublicAffairs, 2018. Review published electronically as part of an H-Diplo
roundtable, November 1, 2019.
David Biggs,
Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam. Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 2018. In American Historical Review, 125:4 (October 2020), pp. 1404-5.
Andrew Wiest,
Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN. New York and London: New York University Press, 2008.
Gary R. Hess,
Vietnam: Explaining America's Lost War. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2009.
Orrin Schwab,
A Clash of Cultures: Civil-Military Relations During the Vietnam War. Westport, CT, and London: Praeger Security International, 2006.
David Marr, Vietnam: State, War, and Revolution, 1945–1946. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2013.
Edward Miller, Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 213.
Iraq Wars Bibliography. A more modest effort, currently listing more than 2,800 items.
"Land Reform and Land Reform Errors in North Vietnam", Asian Studies Section, Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, Ann Arbor, April 4, 1975.
"Classism: Vietnamese Class Struggle in a Comparative Marxist Perspective", Association for Asian Studies conference on Vietnamese Marxism in Comparative Perspective, Washington, October 29, 1978.
Commentator at a panel "Chinese Politics and Military Affairs", Southeast Conference, Association for Asian Studies, January 21, 1983.
"Tonkin Gulf Reconsidered", Naval History Symposium, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, September 25, 1987.
"Nationalism and Communism in Vietnam", presented to the Association for Third World Studies, Americus, GA, April 15, 1988.
"Press Coverage of the Tonkin Gulf Incidents: August 1964", Popular Culture Association, St. Louis, MO, April 7, 1989.
"Limited War", Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, April 7, 1990.
"Guerrilla Warfare", Association of Third World Studies, Columbia, SC, October 12, 1990.
"Escalation Planning in 1964", Seminar on the History of the Vietnam/Indochina War, Columbia University, November 16, 1990.
"Herman Kahn's Model and the Escalation of the Vietnam War", Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, June 22, 1991.
"The Domino Theory", Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, University of Maryland, June 19, 1998.
"Land Reform in North Vietnam, 1953-1956", at the 18th Annual Conference on Southeast Asian Studies, "Mass Political Violence in 20th Century Southeast Asia", Center for Southeast Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley, February 16, 2001.
"The Mirage of Negotiations", at the conference "The Vietnam War: The Search for Peace in the Johnson Years", LBJ Presidential Library, April 22, 2001.
"Tonkin Gulf and the WMD Issue," at the 5th Triennial Vietnam Symposium, Texas Tech University, March 17, 2005.
Participant in the panel "Teaching the Tet Offensive and 1968: A Roundtable Discussion" at the Sixth Triennial Vietnam Symposium, The Vietnam Center, Texas Tech University, March 14, 2008.
"The Myths of the Tet Offensive." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Military History, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, April 3, 2009.
"Chinese Public Policy in Historical Perspective". Paper presented at the International Convention of Asia Scholars, Macau, China, June 24, 2013.
"Chinese Public Policy: State-Society Relations in Historical Perspective". Paper (a slightly modified version of the previous item) presented at a conference "State-Society Relations in the New Era: Lessons from and for China," Fudan University, Shanghai, China, June 30, 2013.
"Reading Enemy Communications and Still Not Knowing: Tonkin Gulf 1964." Paper presented at the Symposium on Cryptologic History (hosted by the National Security Agency's Center for Cryptologic History), Laurel, MD, October 20, 2017.
"The Tet Offensive in Historical Perspective," presentation as part of the plenary session opening the conference "1968 and the Tet Offensive," Texas Tech University, April 27, 2018.
"Failures to Communicate," paper presented at the conference "1968 and the Tet Offensive," Texas Tech University, April 27, 2018.
Commentator on panel "Rethinking the Tet Offensive: Hanoi's Long-Term Victory in South Vietnam's Provinces" at the conference "1968 and the Tet Offensive," Texas Tech University, April 28, 2018.
"Myths of the Tet Offensive," presented at the First Division Museum at Cantigny Park, in Wheaton, Illinois, on September 12, 2018.
Clemson University Provost's Award for Scholarly Achievement, 2002
I have for about forty years been working intermittently on an overall history of the Vietnam War. I wrote a lengthy but very rough draft in the 1980s, then got diverted by other projects. My study of Tonkin Gulf was a section of this that grew to become a separate book. Then I expanded the section on the Tet Offensive to become a separate book. Recently as I was working on my study of asymmetric warfare (see below), incomporating portions of my old draft on the Vietnam War, I realized that looking at the Vietnam War through the lens of asymmetric warfare was giving me a clearer view of it than I had ever had before. This has motivated me to work much more actively on my manuscript on the Vietnam War, and I should have something ready to publish in the not too distant future.
I am in the early stages of writing a book titled An Asymmetric Power: The United States and Its Asymmetric Wars, looking at the way the status of the United States as the world's strongest power has shaped all American wars since World War II, not just the ones usually called "asymmetric wars."
I hope eventually to publish a study of the role of optimism in recent American wars, from Vietnam through Iraq. I will be comparing the case of Vietnam 1967-68 with other cases before and after that.
Revised March 22, 2023.