A comprehensive overview of warfare in Vietnamese history from the early efforts to free themselves from Chinese control, through the Indo-China and Vietnam Wars, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, up to the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979. Concentrating on the Vietnam War, the author explores the conflict from the Vietnamese perspective, demonstrating how for many Vietnamese the war was merely one of a long series of struggles against foreign domination. Encompassing socio-political, economic, diplomatic and cultural issues, this text provides an introduction to Vietnam's military history and will be of interest to students of 20th century American and Asian history.

Spencer C. Tucker, Virginia Military Institute

1 The background 2 French Indo-China 3 The Indo-China War (1946-54) 4 The Vietnam War: the United States takes over (1954-65) 5 The Vietnam War: the quagmire (1965-8) 6 The Vietnam War: the US search for a way out (1968-73) 7 The Third Vietnam War (1973-5) 8 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the war with China