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The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975
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Comments/Reviews
Description: This is a history of the Vietnam War in a single province (Tien Giang province, known as Dinh Toung province from 1954 to 1975) of the Mekong Delta over the period 1930-1975. More precisely, it is a study of the Vietnamese dimension of the "Vietnam War," focusing on the revolutionary movement that became popularly known as the "Viet Cong." Although written by an American, the book elicits Vietnamese voices to explain what happened during the war and why.
There are several distinctive features to this study: 1) it provides an explanation for the paradox of why the revolutionary movement was so successful during the war, but unable to meet the challenges of postwar developments; 2) it challenges the dominant theme of contemporary political analysis which assumes that people are "rational" actors responding to events with careful calculations of self-interest; 3) it closely examines provionce-level documentation which casts light on a number of important historical controversies about the war, or offers a new perspective on the turning points in the conflict (in many cases this documentation provides crucial pieces of the puzzle which official Party histories of the war gloss over).
No other history of the Vietnam War has drawn on such a depth of documentation, especially firsthand accounts that allow the Vietnamese participants to speak directly to us.
Selected Contents:
Acknowledgements
A Reader's Guide to The Vietnamese War
Volume 1
1. The Vietnamese War:Introduction
2. Postlude
3. Prelude
4. Revolution
5. Resistance
6. The Six Years of Peace:1954-59
7. The Tiger Wakes
8. Forged by the Hammer of the Party
9. The Strong Armed Fist: Military Expansion 1961-63
10. "Sharing Rice and Clothing": Land and Class
11. Pressed Into the Mold: Organizing the Villages
12. Going for Broke
13. The Two Main Links in the Revolutionary Chain: Taxes and Conscription
Volume 2
14. Year of the Big Change: 1965
15. The Uncounted Enemy
16. Winning Hearts and Minds
17. Battle for the Villages
18. Stalemate
19. Tet: the Untold Story of the "General Offensive and General Uprisings"
20. Tragic Farewell
21. Holding On
22. Civil War
23. The Final Chapter Appendix
Appendix A. The Human
Appendix B. Reflections
Appendix C. The Rand Interview Sample
Appendix D. Interview List
Appendix E. Rice Price and Currency Values
Appendix F. Village Population Map of Ding Tuong Province
Appendix G. Hamlet Locator and Guide to HES Data, 1967-1972
Appendix H. Partial List of Revolutionaries Mentioned in This Book
Appendix I. Maps
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Review(s): David Elliot's The Vietnamese War is...the most comprehensive and enlightening book on that war since June 1971, when The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers. The New York Review of Books
...this massive and ambitious study provides all the detail one could hope for. ...this work has redefined the concept of the case study. ...should give readers a solid grasp of the process of the Vietnamese revolution. It is sure to become a foundational study in its area. ... Essential. All public and academic collections and levels. Choice
[Elliott's] account of the war in My Tho is the best and probably the last of the local studies written by experts whose in-country experience provided the starting-point for their work. Critical Asian Studies
...should prove invaluable to those seriously interested in the war in the countryside. The wealth of detail and analysis in The Vietnamese War sets the bar high for future studies and represents a major contribution to our knowledge of the war. The Journal of Military History
After thirty years, the Vietnamese revolution has finally found its historian. With its grand sweep of history and ability to link the local to the world beyond, its authoritative attention to detail, its mastery of military strategy and cultural analysis, its astute portrayal of the dynamics between the opposing sides, and the way that it captures the personalities of all the major revolutionary figures, The Vietnamese War presents a compelling and definitive scholarly account of the rise and triumph of the southern Communist revolution in Vietnam, from its beginnings in the 1920s to 1975. The Journal of Asian Studies, 63:4
...the most important work on the Vietnam War that has been published in at least twenty years. Elliott's book is completely convincing. ...Elliott is wisely working on a drastically abridged version. All serious libraries should acquire the full-length version now, and the shorter one when it becomes available. Pacific Affairs: Vol. 78, No.4
    
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