The war in Vietnam was initially a localized civil conflict—a bloody and brutal contest for state control between the communist government in the north and a Western-backed republican government in the south. But the war quickly became a global event. American involvement in the skies and on the ground sowed deep discontent and discord back home. Bombing campaigns spilled into neighboring Laos and Cambodia. Defense systems and new tech flowed to North Vietnam from major communist powers like China and the USSR. And a broad swath of ordinary people both inside of and beyond Vietnam—private citizens, army grunts, peace activists—were profoundly impacted by the fighting there.

In The Vietnam War, you will learn about the causes and consequences of the war in Vietnam. You will explore the scope of American intervention from air campaigns to large-scale military operations on the ground. You will survey the history of Vietnam from colonial Indochina onward, getting to know the homegrown ideas, personalities, and politics that would come to shape the conflict. You will reconstruct major military operations like the Tet Offensive and Rolling Thunder. You will examine the strategies used by US, South Vietnamese, and VC troops and determine their effectiveness in both the short and long term. And you will head to America to investigate the domestic politics of war, alongside the rise of a powerful anti-war movement that would come to define the decade.

That’s not all. Dive into the human dimensions of war, unearthing the experiences of everyday people bound up in and touched by the conflict in Vietnam. Explore the everyday life of a US combat soldier living and warring in Vietnam. Construct a portrait of your everyday VC soldier, from his socioeconomic background to the kinds of food he ate along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. And follow veterans as they resettle back into American society, despite maltreatment and personal trauma. The Vietnam War is not just a history lesson on one singular event; you will engage in an exploration of war itself and the kind of impact it can have on ordinary hearts, minds, and spirits.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.