In George Herring’s novel, America’s Longest War, he describes U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Herring commences his synopsis of the Vietnam War with a thorough examination of the history of Vietnamese people and their chronic struggle with foreign conquest. George continues to summarize the war by going all the way back to Vietnam’s occupation by the Chinese over 2,000 years ago. Later in history, The French also colonize and conquest Vietnam. From reading the novel, one can better understand Vietnam’s distrust of foreign influence. Continuing down this path, George then examines the position of Ho Chi Minh and his fight at the end of World War II to proclaim Vietnam independent from French rule. Without the ensuing “Cold War” and Ho’s communist roots, Vietnam’s efforts to be independent from foreign control may have become a reality. Instead, the U.S. allowed France to recapture its colonies that it had lost to the Japanese. In fear of a communist-ruled Southeast Asia, America helped finance French defense of her colonies in the area. Instead of using American troops In fear that the wrong message would be dispersed to other emerging nations.
Throughout the…show more content… All topics received a fair evaluation by the writer. Further, Herring looks at the war from all angles. He takes on the events from American, and Vietnamese standpoints. This is an important idea to grasp. By providing the many points of view, the reader truly gets a feel for the struggles infantry and their superiors faced. This was not just an American war; every policy the United States enacted, had an impact on the rest of the world. Not one policy came about from the Vietnamese government. This is an important idea that many other novels seem to lose site of. John Kennedy did not cause the war; Lyndon Johnson was not solely responsible for the escalation of the war; Richard Nixon did not bring about the end of the
