Vietnam: A History

Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow

The Vietnam War, to me, is the most interesting war in American history. As someone once said, it is like a “shroud of a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma.” Before reading this book I had a general knowledge of the war. I knew about the communist insurgents, the Gulf of Tonkin, Saigon and Ho Chi Mihn. I knew about Presidents Johnson and Nixon, posttraumatic stress disorder and demonstrations. What I did not fully understand was why. Why were the North Vietnamese so resilient? Why did the US make such poor judgment? Why were we really there? What was Vietnam’s history prior to our arrival?

“History is an organic process, a continuity of related events, inexorable yet not inevitable.” (pg 11) The roots of America’s involvement in Vietnam were nurtured by what Professor Daniel Bell has called America’s concept of its own “exceptionalism.” George Berkeley, an Anglican bishop and philosopher stated in 1726 as he departed from England to America, “Westward the course of empire.” The phrase, ‘manifest destiny,’ was coined in 1845 to promote the annexation of Texas, originally, and to extend America to its natural boundaries. Promoters of the Homestead Act sought to open new territory for small farmers.

Idealists such as Walt Whitman intended to project America’s “happiness and liberty” to the ancient cultures of Asia, “facing west from California’s shores, inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound…the land of migrations, look afar…”

Around the turn of the century, America did grab Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, but it seemed that America kept a hands off approach with Asia, which the Europeans already had their hands on. There was little inclination for America to dominate foreign territories, since Americans were former British Colonial rebels.

So Cuba was granted independence, and bids by Haiti and San Domingo to become American dominions were rejected. America, unlike Europe, refrained from plundering China, however, the ‘pacification’ program in the Philippines foreshadowed US strategy in Vietnam.

America’s expansionism was almost evangelical, “as if the United States had been singled out by some divinity for the salvation of the planet.” (pg13) After World War II, FDR stressed that international post-war peace and stability would depend on America’s global leadership, and Woodrow Wilson pledged to “make the world safe for democracy.”

Meanwhile, American missionaries began pouring into China. Many prominent Americans envisioned a Christian China with crosses on every hill and valley.