Forfatter billede

Jonathan Neale

Forfatter af A People's History of the Vietnam War

20 Works 271 Members 5 Reviews

Om forfatteren

Jonathan Neale has written eleven plays, three novels, and four nonfiction books. He holds a PhD in social history from Warwick University in England
Disambiguation Notice:

(eng) "The American War: Vietnam 1960-1975" was published by Bookmarks (London) in 2001. It was republished as "A People's History of the Vietnam War" by New Press (New York) in 2003. These are the same work.

Værker af Jonathan Neale

Satte nøgleord på

Almen Viden

Køn
male
Uddannelse
London School of Economics (BSc|Social Anthropology)
University of Warwick (MA|Labour History)
University of Warwick (PhD|Social History)
Erhverv
Lecturer (Bath Spa University)
Oplysning om flertydighed
"The American War: Vietnam 1960-1975" was published by Bookmarks (London) in 2001. It was republished as "A People's History of the Vietnam War" by New Press (New York) in 2003. These are the same work.

Medlemmer

Anmeldelser

i had such high hopes for this book, many of which are based in the fact that though the vietnam war and its mythology hung heavy over the culture of my country during my childhood, most of my knowledge of the war was from either hollywood movies or narratives of resistance back home. i didn't know as much as i wanted to about the historical background that led up to the war, nor about other forms of resistance beyond the (mostly) white, (mostly) middle class perspectives of the protest movement of 1960's america, which were so easy to find in my formative years. i also felt i was missing a lot of historical detail about specific incidents that occurred during the war.

rather, i should say i didn't think i knew as much as i wanted to about the historical background that led up to the war, because it turns out i had gleaned most of the knowledge necessary to understand, i just hadn't constructed it in a fashion easy for me to comprehend. this book helped me do that, especially the first section focusing on the vietnamese up to the war, and also helped fill in a few of the blanks. for that it was appreciated.

the first speed bump i hit was in this section, though. the author fully warns the reader that, due to the complicated nature of his argument, he will use simple language to make it clear. maybe it's because i have to correct so much writing at various levels of English ability that i tend to notice when the structure has been simplified to the point of absurdity. one paragraph on page 19 has the following repetitious structure in each sentence: "This produced ... They were ... They hated ... They wanted ... They saw ... They were ... They were... " With every "They" i grew more annoyed. Maybe i'm nitpicking, but i think it's possible to simplify without losing the small amount of structural complexity necessary to avoid ending up with a repetitive string of facts.

But that was just a mild annoyance. what really got to me about this book were blanket statements about conclusions and vague references to events that should have been filled in in detail. an example of the latter, from page 66:
" ... the Pentagon staged a phony incident in the Gulf of Tonkin between American naval ships and North Vietnamese gunboats. On that basis, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution saying the president could do more or less what he wanted in Indochina."

this is the only reference in the book to the gulf of tonkin. this was a decisive point in the history of the war and i still know nothing about it. except that it was phony. and apparently that it was decisive.

but what really got to me were all these interesting conclusions thrown about with no evidence to back them up. for example, page 139 strongly states that all resistance worldwide in the year 1968, from France to the US to the Czech republic to Pakistan and beyond, "had all started with [the] Tet [offensive], with a world seeing that America, the greatest power on earth, could be defeated."

it's possible, but there is absolutely no evidence presented that Tet, the first televised humiliation of the US during the war, was directly responsible for what was happening in, say, the communist bloc, or in the middle east. he provides ample evidence and analysis of what it did to citizens of the US, but none to support this wider assumption. this discounts local struggles, histories, customs, situations. it's pompous and western-centric to declare such things without some proof, or at least some discussion of where the idea came from.

other such statements include the assertion that martin luther king's speech against the overwhelming number of blacks being used as cannon fodder was directly responsible for the generals pulling black men out of combat (p 129); that "like many other governments, what the khmer rouge leaders feared the most were communists," which is strange, considering that the khmer rouge WERE the communists (p 202); that after the iranian revolution, "many educated young women in the Middle East ... put on a headscarf to show their opposition to all established society" (ALL ESTABLISHED SOCIETY?) (p 223), and that "the U.S. government reacted to their humiliation in Iran with a campaign to whip up anti-Muslim prejudice that lasted for the next twenty years. (p 224)"

that last one is tricky. i personally don't doubt that anti-muslim prejudice was systematic and systemic and planned, but i need some goddamn proof, especially if you are going to link it directly to the iranian revolution and the hostage situation. his only proof is another blanket assertion that american newspaper articles are anti-muslim. this does not prove to me that this prejudice was thought up or even a campaign from the highest levels of government, just that it had a detrimental effect on journalism.

as well, there is a whole section where he talks about the aftermath of vietnam, and how it resulted in the US government avoiding sending ground troops into any foreign conflicts, something called the "vietnam syndrome." he presents five situations where the US resorted to bombing and other forms of weaponry, or did not follow through on possible outcomes, due to the fear of sending actual soldiers into combat. leaving aside the simplified assertion that saddam was not removed after desert storm because of this syndrome, the author does not even reference countless conflicts in the 80s and 90s where troops were sent, or where the reader might be interested in knowing whether or not troops were sent. some come to mind: grenada, honduras, panama, the phillippines, somalia, haiti, east timor, etc, etc.

in fact, the book was written on the eve of the invasion of iraq in 2003, so to speak, so there are some assumptions about what is to come that, though interesting, are completely unnecessary.

so i was annoyed and angered before i got to the assertion that "many of the protesters in Seattle were the children of parents who protested in the 1960s. It was only natural to pick up where their parents left off." as a member of that generation whose parents supposedly protested in the 1960s, i and many people i know were nihilistic about protest, about our voices, about the very idea of survival. what the fuck's the point if we're all going to die in a nuclear fireball and it doesn't fucking do anything, anyway? this feeling was always reinforced with, and somewhat contradicted by, the undercurrent of thought imposed upon us that nothing we did was ever going to be as meaningful or special or perfect as "our parents' protest." we grew up thinking we could die at any minute. the struggle to get past that and to see a world we wanted to create was very much our own.

this may just be my own baggage that i am bringing to this, but i think it demonstrates a deep simplification of many difficult subjects, indicative of why this book is such a disappointment. there is some interesting history and he makes a few good points, but so much seems to be pulled out of the air, or only based on other people's work. for example, while discussing a peasant protest in 1992, he states "this is an extreme example and we do not know what happened next." (p 215). why the fuck not? because the essay you quoted doesn't mention what happened next? go find out, goddammit.

the discussion of what the war means for the present and the future is the most problematic aspect, as he is trying to discuss 30 years of history in many different countries in a very short span of time. perhaps it would have been best to keep the focus on the war itself. in fact, the most thrilling part for me was to learn about the rebellion in the armed forces, how there were underground publications on the army bases, how soldiers refused to fight and even murdered officers who tried to push them into combat. the discussion of the "vets being spit on by protesters" myth was particularly interesting, wrapped, as it is, in the discussion of how perceptions of what happened were created after the fact. the systematic creation of blame that was placed on soldiers for the failure of the war is particularly heartbreaking, and compelling. this sort of information is necessary, i think, to the discussion of a people's history of this war, even though it comes after the war ended. the WTO and anti-capitalist protest is not necessary to this discussion and fractures the focus, even though the point he is trying to make is that there are lessons to be learned in all of these aspects of history. yes, there are, but perhaps that should be taken up in another book.

there was enough new information to warrant two stars, but this book made me annoyed and angry and i had to force myself to finish it.

and it doesn't even have a goddamn map of vietnam.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
J.Flux | 4 andre anmeldelser | Aug 13, 2022 |
The author is part of the International Socialist Organization, and so his whitewash of Leninist Russia in the first chapter is totally ahistorical. He does not give the Vietnamese Communist Party the same kidglove treatment, however; the criticism is deserved and fair.

The book's strong points lie in the description of everyday life for a Viet Cong guerilla, and the resistance to the war within the United States. Shockingly, the author gives credit to anarchists in the US where it is due (in the creation of coffee shops, in "salting" the military to organize, and in fomenting mutiny), something ISO folks rarely do.… (mere)
 
Markeret
magonistarevolt | 4 andre anmeldelser | Apr 28, 2020 |
This book has a lot of potential, just sorely misses an editor. Both for basic structure, as well as overarching build. The last chapter was interesting, but seemed incredibly out of place, and an opportunity for the author to blatantly post his views.

The lack of editing and scores of opinions make this book less credible, and that's a shame, because these are things that need to be talked about.
 
Markeret
simonspacecadet | 4 andre anmeldelser | Jul 29, 2018 |
Another one of my short reviews....This book needed an editor more than any book I've ever read. Absolutely loaded with mistakes from scanning, typesetting, or the editor just being unfamiliar with the language of the book, the result is still the same. At first laughable, then utterly annoying, until finally I just read and was able to figure out most of the mistakes in order to continue reading. I will not be buying another book from this publisher.
Having said that, the next topic is the style, or lack thereof, of the author. I feel fairly certain I could construct more interesting prose when I was in the 8th grade than this author will ever hope to do. Abominable, a charlatan masquerading as an author, or is it a revolutionary only interested in changing the world, but not necessarily for the better?
Finally, the arguments. Some were quite good. Many, especially in the final chapter, were a bit otherworldly. A book purporting to be a history of the Vietnam War spent little time in the details, and much too much time in theory. I do believe much of what he spouts has more than a germ of truth, but it would be difficult to swallow his story based on much of his logic.
The shotgun approach to the book certainly won't do much either to convince anyone that the author is overly astute in his observations. There was always another point to be made, yet little time for reflection. Many of the thoughts of the author need to be said, preferably by someone who has a better command of the English language, is less involved idealistically, and has the support of a marginal, at least, publishing house.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
untraveller | 4 andre anmeldelser | Jul 18, 2017 |

Måske også interessante?

Statistikker

Værker
20
Medlemmer
271
Popularitet
#85,376
Vurdering
3.2
Anmeldelser
5
ISBN
35
Sprog
7

Diagrammer og grafer