The Vietnam War was the defining event of recent U.S. history, a tragic struggle that cost the lives of 58,000 Americans and 970,000 Vietnamese. The three-volume Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, edited by Spencer Tucker, has been hailed as the most comprehensive reference work on that watershed event. Now Tucker has produced an abridged one-volume edition, a miracle of concision that includes virtually all the entries found in the parent volume, in condensed form.
Here are more than 900 alphabetically arranged entries--plus over 200 primary source documents--that illuminate every aspect of the Vietnam War. There are entries on Buddhists, defoliation, post-traumatic stress disorder, the fall of Ngo Dinh Diem, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The volume covers military and domestic fronts; air, land, and sea campaigns and battles; weapons, strategies, and tactics; key Vietnamese and American figures; the anti-war movement and international repercussions of the war; and the impact of the war on film, art, literature, and society. The volume also includes important background information, such as the developments that led to U.S. involvement in the war and postwar Vietnamese history to the present. Tucker provides extensive coverage of both American and Vietnamese perspectives, and has incorporated numerous entries by Vietnamese contributors.