. . . Joes' presentation is dispassionate, clear, and plausible, as he takes the reader quickly and skillfully from the Viet Minh War in 1954 to the fall of Saigon in March 1975. The moderate level of detail he employs makes the book ideal for classroom use. ORBIS
. . . this is a useful book, one in line with new revisionist writings. . .
Infantry In The War for South Viet Nam
In The War for South Viet Nam, Anthony James Joes addresses a side not often studied in the range of texts available on the Viet Nam War. Written for a non-military audience, this book chronicles and analyzes the twenty year struggle to maintain South Vietnamese independence. Joes tells the story with a sympathetic focus on South Viet Nam and is highly critical of U.S. military strategy and tactics in fighting this war. He claims that the fall of South Viet Nam was not inevitable, that an abrupt and public termination of U.S. aid provoked a crisis of confidence inside South Viet Nam that led to debacle. Students and scholars of military studies, South East Asia, U.S. foreign policy, or the general reader interested in this fascinating period in 20th-century history, will find The War for South Viet Nam invaluable reading.
The book begins with an historical background to U.S. involvement in Viet Nam. Written with a keen understanding of political, historical, and military factors, The War for South Viet Nam supplies an assemblage of information that was, until now, widely scattered. Joes closely examines the geographical determinants of the war and discusses mistakes in U.S. strategy, including the Americanization of the war, overly destructive methods of combat, and the failure to resolve the problem of invasion through the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Joes maintains that future stragtegy must contain more sophisticated, less destructive anti-guerrilla tactics. The complicated factors involved in the Viet Nam War are here offered in a consolidated, objective form enabling the reader to consider the implications of U.S. experiences in South Viet Nam for future policy in other world areas.
About the Author: ANTHONY JAMES JOES is the director of the International Relations Program at St. Joseph's University. Among his previous writings are Fascism in the Contemporary World, Mussolini, and From the Barrel of a Gun: Armies and Revolutions.
