The Vietnam War has been portrayed through many oral histories over the last three decades, but this superb volume is quite possibly the best in a crowded field. Most oral histories draw primarily on the stories of servicemen and -women, but as the subtitle claims, this compilation presents 135 one- to five-page interviews with American and Vietnamese veterans and conversations with journalists, antiwar protestors, doctors, nurses, government officials, and many others whose lives were altered by the war. The book is distinguished by historian Appy's (Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam) skillfully conducted interviews and his excellent introductory essays on all periods of the war, beginning in 1945, when the first Americans parachuted into northern Vietnam, and concluding with the conflict's present uncertain legacies. The author notes that 40 percent of all Americans were born after the war ended in 1975, and his book is ideal for this audience as well as anyone else who wants readable personal accounts of how the war permeated all aspects of society, culture, and politics. An excellent complement to the Library of America's two-volume Reporting Vietnam; highly recommended for all public and academic libraries. [BOMC main selection.]-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

When Appy (Working-Class War) says "all sides" he is not exaggerating. It's difficult to think of any group of people who were involved in the many and varied aspects of the American war in Vietnam not represented in these oral history pages. Appy's testifiers include war hawks; peace activists; former Vietcong guerrilla fighters, Vietnamese Communists, Vietnamese anti-Communists; American veterans of many stripes, from privates to generals, medics to infantrymen; POW/MIA activists; poets, novelists, journalists; entertainers; and former government officials from all sides. Appy amply fulfills his goal of presenting a "vast range of war-related memories" in this massive, valuable book. He spent five years traveling around the country and in Vietnam, interviewing 350 people, and included about half of their stories. Oral histories often suffer from loose organization or from voices that pop up confusingly again and again. Appy takes a different approach. Each person appears only once, and Appy gives the participants plenty of room to tell their stories. He also provides on-the-mark, often insightful introductions to each entry, along with brief but to-the-point chapter introductions to set the historical context. The book contains the remembrances of some well-known people, including Gen. William Westmoreland, Gen. Alexander Haig, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Walt Whitman Rostow, Julian Bond, Ward Just, Oliver Stone, poet Yusef Kumunyakaa and writer-activists Todd Gitlin and Jonathan Schell. There are others known mostly to Vietnam cognoscenti (Chester Cooper, Le Minh Kue, Rufus Phillips, Wayne Karlin and Nguyen Qui Duc), as well as many of the voices of just plain folks who experienced the war in myriad ways. It all adds up to a solid contribution to the primary source background of the longest and most controversial overseas war in American history. (May 26) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved