Dudley, Ed., The Vietnam War - Opposing Viewpoints

Abstract

Books of "readings" invariably reflect the attitudes of the editors who select and shape the materials to be included in the book. That in itself is a reason to be cautious in using such books as texts, particularly in a course dealing with the complex historical events that make up the American-Vietnamese war of the 1960s and 1970s. William Dudley and his colleagues on the staff of Greenhaven Press have chosen thirty-two selections of varying length, organized them in for-or-against pairings in six chapters, and introduced each chapter with a short preface. Dudley is not a professional historian, but the book, one in a series in the "opposing viewpoints" format, is competently manufactured with an excellent glossary, chronology, and bibliography, the latter including many of the most important books dealing with the Vietnam War.