Description: Split into three volumes, The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War brings together seventy-five leading experts on the war from across the world, covering the late colonial era to present-day legacies, using a range of diverse methodologies and approaches. When did the fighting begin, why and how did it escalate, and in what manner did the violence end and the legacies endure? These are some of the fundamental questions that have consumed scholars, whose works trigger more questions than offer definitive answers. The volumes seek neither to reconcile past arguments, enflame ongoing disputes, or set off new debates - instead, they intend to celebrate the diversity and differences in scholarship and attest to the indisputable importance of this conflict in global history. From decision-making in the corridors of power, to everyday life at war on the battlefront and homefront, to cultural legacies of the war on a global level, the three volumes present the most exhaustive and authoritative treatment of the seminal conflict.
Brief description: Lien-Hang T. Nguyen holds the Dorothy Borg Chair in the History of the United States and East Asia at Columbia University. She is the author of Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace (2012), which won prizes from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Society for Military History. She is the co-founder of Vietnamese Studies at Columbia and serves on the Board of Trustees of Fulbright University Vietnam.