A History of How American Culture Lead Us Into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did

A History of How American Culture Lead Us Into Vietnam and make Us Fight the Way We Did, by Loren Baritz, was published by The Johns Hopkins University mash in 1998. It runs to 400 pages in paperback. Baritz has held administrative positions in numerous universities in the United States. He went to the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts in the early eighties as Provost and served as Chancellor for a time in 1982. He is a noned historian and well reckon in his field.This book is a incompatible sort of history from the usual in that it deals with the clash of cultures and the differences in the midst of those of the United States and those of Vietnam. Baritz shows the expectation of the American leadership, which was instrumental in spark advance us d possess the path to a disastrous warf ar that was not pass onnable from the outset. In three parts Bartitz explains wherefore it was the myths of our invincibility and our belief that a Christian god watched over exclusively of our endeavors which convinced us to continue the war.He quotes Her macrocosm Melvilles lines concerning the American soma (Baritz 1998 p 26). He paints a characterization of a land lulled by its own perceptions of righteousness and how apple pie, m other(a)hood and whap of Old Glory caused us to rally we had the moral right and obligation to inflict our system of beliefs on others on the other side of the globe. He shows that the idea of a separate southeastward Vietnam was a perfect fabrication and had ever had any undercoat in fact.We intervened in a civilian matter between one nation and the egos of our leaders prevented us from adaptting it was all a mistake, apologizing and withdrawing with our 58,000 plus dead still alive. We failed to win because we did not understand the sagaciousness of the Vietnamese. Baritz separates, Vietnam ultimately won its war because it was willing to encounter more death than we considered rational, (325). We had tra ined a mho Vietnamese army to stir up like American soldiers, making them completely dependant on American supplies and materials.Therefore, says Baritz, the South Vietnamese were never capable of sustaining the dispute on their own. Baritizs thesis is that the good war was doomed from the outset because the American government never understood why the northeast was fighting or to what lengths they would go to continue the fight. They would never puzzle halt had we paved the jungle and decimated them. Because of their cultural beliefs the North Vietnamese may not score been capable of stopping. The reunification of their nation was more than a holy war, it was a living, take a breath tangible of what they were as a charge and a nation.It was imbedded in their psyches that losing was never an option. We never understood that they would fight to the last man standing. In proof of his thesis Baritz says that term our resistance was fighting a war of nerves, using politics and psychology to advance us, along with every other method at their disposal, including the use of women and children, America was lulled, by the idea that this country is the New Camelot, where jurist and righteousness are dispensed to all, whether or not they wish to be recipients of our largess.Baritz reckons that as the winners of World War II we consume ourselves as the champions of democracy, as the New Israel, as Gods chosen. Therefore we believe that with God on our side we are blessed in all of our endeavors. We became the urban center on a hill (29). We fought the war, Baritz says, in the classic Ugly American counsel, which is how we conducted alien policy in Southeast Asia. We did not advise, we commanded, and expected them to obey, for we believed that whether or not they would admit it, all nations wish to be us.Baritz public debate is constructed in tiers, giving the read a quick insight into the oriental mind from the first page where he begins by relating the tale of Colonel Chuc who, in 1972, go in a temple in South Vietnam, was given a revelation. Colonel Chuc sank into a tempt and received a battle scheme and a magical sword from the eye of the Vietnamese general who defeated Kublai Khans Mongols seven hundred years earlier (3). That this was effective illustrates just some of the cultural differences between our two countries.Baritz leads the reader through the American administrations from Kennedy to Nixon, and gives insight into the games our bureaucrats played with such figures as the body count of enemy dead. though Baritz points out that time after time, when government decisions were made there was no fulfill to determine the outcome of those policies, and whether or not they were a success. Still the reader is leave with the belief that much of Baritzs argument, small-arm sound and acceptable, is not as in full documented as it could be.Some of what he has to say seems to be based on well- ameliorate speculation that his ideas are positively the way things occurred during the divisive and disastrous war. His argument that the American people had no hatred of the enemy and quickly wearied of the entire outgrowth seems too obvious to dispute, prima facie, only how is such an assertion proven? It seems to be an assumption. Baritzs book is an easy and gratifying read, though scholarly in concept and execution. He appears to be emotionally attached to his subject, but this works in his choose and makes the book more believable.I would think that while this work does not contain all of the nuts and bolts of history, it is still a blue-chip treatise on the cultural clashes and is gives us a lesson in cultural differences which may have escaped the minds of todays leadership. Officials in policy-making positions should read this as a matter of course. I believe it was worth(predicate) my time, and should be used in classrooms. kit and boodle Cited Baritz, L. 1998 Backfire A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and make Us Fight the Way We Did Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press