HIST3452: The Vietnam War (FR) Guide Ask Us

UNB Libraries subscribe to two key online archives of primary sources related to the subject areas of this course.

See also these open resources:

• Vietnam War (National Archives)
• Vietnam War Records (National Archives)
• Foreign Relations of the United States Guide to Sources on Vietnam, 1969-1975 (Office of the Historian) - Browse "Historical Documents" by administration or search within the volumes
• The Vietnam Center and Archive (Texas Tech University)
• Anti-War and Radical History Project - Pacific Northwest (University of Washington)
• The CIA's Vietnam History (National Security Archives)
• The Vietnam War Digital Archive (Wilson Center)
• FBI Files on the Anti-War Movement (The Vault)
• FBI Files on Vietnam Veterans Against the War (The Vault)
• The Pentagon Papers: Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force (National Archives)
• Vietnam Era MIA/POW Database (Library of Congress)

Primary Sources via UNB WorldCat

Collections of primary sources are also available in the Library's general collection (in print and online). To find these, use UNB WorldCat to run a search for your topic along with a subject search for "sources". For example, if you would like to find books that include primary sources on the Vietnam War, you would search for kw:"Vietnam War" AND su:sources" in the UNB WorldCat. Other subject searches that will help you find primary source material include "correspondence", "narratives", "diaries", and "speeches".

Debate Topic # 1: Could the US have won the war in Vietnam?

Secondary sources:

Hess, Gary R. Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015. (See chapter 5 - “The Revisionist Critique of the “Other War”: The “Hearts-and-Minds” Prescription for History, p. 110-131.)

Martini, Edwin A. “Hearts, Minds, and Herbicides: The Politics of the Chemical War in Vietnam.” Diplomatic History 37, no. 1 (2013): 58–84.

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Kort, Michael. The Vietnam War Reexamined. Cambridge University Press, 2018. [on order]

Logevall, Fredrik. Choosing War the Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam. University of California Press, 2023.

McMahon, R. J. “Contested Memory: The Vietnam War and American Society, 1975-2001.” Diplomatic History 26, no. 2 (2002): 159–84.

Moyar, Mark. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Prados, John. Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975. University Press of Kansas, 2009.

Priest, A. "The Rhetoric of Revisionism: Presidential Rhetoric about the Vietnam War since 9/11." Presidential Studies Quarterly 43, no. 3 (2013): 538–561.

Record, Jeffrey. “Vietnam in Retrospect: Could We Have Won?” The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters 26, no. 4 (1996): 51-65.

Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999.

Debate topic # 2: Did the media play a role in the end of the Vietnam War?

Secondary sources:

Hess, Gary R. Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015. (See chapter 6 - “The Media and the War: Irresponsible or Balanced Journalism”, p. 132-153.)

Toong, Zi Jun. “Overthrown by the Press: The Us Media’s Role in the Fall of Diem.” Australasian Journal of American Studies 27, no. 1 (2008): 56–72.

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Bu, Xuanting. “Unraveling the Tet Offensive: Impact on American Journalism, Politics, and Nixon’s Era.” Communications in Humanities Research 33, no. 1 (2024): 25–33.

Culbert, David. “Television’s Vietnam and Historical Revisionism in the United States.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television 8, no. 3 (August 1, 1988): 253–67.

Hallin, Daniel C. “The Media, the War in Vietnam, and Political Support: A Critique of the Thesis of an Oppositional Media.” The Journal of Politics 46, no. 1 (1984): 2–24.

Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam. Oxford University Press, 1986.

Kobrick, Jake, and Federal Judicial Center. The Pentagon Papers in the Federal Courts. Federal Judicial Center, 2019.

Landers, James. The Weekly War: Newsmagazines and Vietnam. University of Missouri Press, 2004.

Nguyen, Dien An Luong, and Hong Tien Vu. "The US Media on the Vietnam War and Beyond: In the Name of Objectivity." In Journalism and Foreign Policy Journalism and Foreign Policy: How the US and UK Media Cover Official Enemies, ed. J. Scott, 148-163. Routledge, 2022. [order chapter via document delivery]

Rabe, Robert. “Richard Dudman’s ‘40 Days With the Enemy’ and the Boundaries of Anti-War Opinion in the Nixon Years.” South Central Review 33, no. 3 (2016): 91–110.

Debate Topic # 3: Was the Tet Offensive a decisive victory or a devastating defeat?

Secondary sources:

Hess, Gary R. Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015. (See chapter 7 - “The Tet Offensive: Decisive American Victory or Devastating Loss”, p. 154-177.)

Boylan, Kevin M. “Goodnight Saigon: American Provincial Advisors’ Final Impressions of the Vietnam War.” Journal of Military History 78, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 233–70. [access via course reserves]

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Blood, Jake. The Tet Effect: Intelligence and the Public Perception of War. Routledge, 2005.

Borer, Douglas A., Stephen Twing, and Randy P. Burkett. “Problems in the Intelligence-Policy Nexus: Rethinking Korea, Tet, and Afghanistan.” Intelligence & National Security 29, no. 6 (November 1, 2014): 811–36.

Bu, Xuanting. “Unraveling the Tet Offensive: Impact on American Journalism, Politics, and Nixon’s Era.” Communications in Humanities Research 33, no. 1 (2024): 25–33.

Gilbert, Marc Jason, and William P. Head. The Tet Offensive. Praeger, 1996.

Ovodenko, Alexander. “Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad: Revisiting CIA and Military Expectations of the Tet Offensive.” Journal of Strategic Studies 34, no. 1 (February 1, 2011): 119–44.

Robbins, James S. This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive. Encounter Books, 2012.

Schmitz, David F. The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, and Public Opinion. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.

Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Cornell University Press, 1991.
 

Debate Topic # 4: Was Nixon and Kissinger strategy for ending the war in Vietnam a success or failure?

Secondary sources:

Hess, Gary R. Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015. (See chapter 8 - “Nixon-Kissinger and the Ending of the War: A “Lost Victory” or “Neither Peace nor Honor”? p. 178-207.)

Prentice, David L. “Choosing the ‘Long Road’: Henry Kissinger, Melvyn Laird, Vietnamization, and the War over Vietnam’s Strategy,” Diplomatic History 40, no. 3 (2016): 445-475.  

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Caldwell, Dan. “The Legitimation of the Nixon-Kissinger Grand Design and Grand Strategy.” Diplomatic History 33, no. 4 (September 2009): 633–652.

Daddis, Gregory A. Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Hughes, Ken. Fatal Politics: The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War, and the Casualties of Reelection. University of Virginia Press, 2015

Kimball, Jeffrey P. Nixon’s Vietnam War. University Press of Kansas, 2002.

Logevall, Fredrik, and Andrew Preston, eds. Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969–1977. Oxford University Press, 2008. (See chapters: “Waging War on All Fronts: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Vietnam War, 1969–1972” and "The End of the Vietnam War, 1973-1976".)

Powaski, Ronald E. “Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the Congress: Ending US Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1969–1974.” In American Presidential Statecraft: During the Cold War and After, 121–174. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 

Schmitz, David F. Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century. Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.

Warner, Geoffrey. “Leaving Vietnam: Nixon, Kissinger and Ford, 1969–1975. Part One: January 1969-January 1972.”International Affairs 87, no. 6 (2011): 1485–1501.

Accurate, properly formatted footnotes, reading lists, and bibliographies are hallmarks of good academic research. Through citing, you acknowledge the source of any ideas you mention in your writing, document your research, and provide the information your readers need to track down your sources.

The standard citation style for History is Chicago:

• Chicago Manual of Style Endnote/Footnote Format
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• Chicago Documentation Examples
• The Chicago Manual of Style (eBook link via UNB Libraries includes the 17th and 18th editions)

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