The Making of a Quagmire

America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era

By (author) David Halberstam Edited by Daniel J. Singal

Not available to order

Publication date:

09 November 2007

Length of book:

248 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781461666509

Pulitzer-prize winning author David Halberstam's eyewitness account provides a riveting narrative of how the United States created a major foreign policy disaster for itself in a faraway land it knew little about. In the introduction to this edition, historian Daniel J. Singal supplies crucial background information that was unavailable in the mid-1960s when the book was written. With its numerous firsthand recollections of life in the war zone, The Making of a Quagmire penetrates to the essence of what went wrong in Vietnam. Although its focus is the Kennedy era, its analysis of the blunders and misconceptions of American military and political leaders holds true for the entire war.

Introduction
Part I: Edging Toward Calamity: Vietnam in the Early 1960s
Chapter 1: Coming into a Troubled Land
Chapter 2: Latter-Day Mandarins: The Ngo Family
Chapter 3: A Strange Alliance: The Americans and Diem
Part II: The War in the Delta
Chapter 4: In the Field with the ARVN
Chapter 5: Finding an Elusive Foe
Chapter 6: Disaster: The Battle of Ap Bac
Chapter 7: Collapse in the Delta
Part III: The Fall of the Diem Regime
Chapter 8: The Buddhist Revolt Begins
Chapter 9: The Raid on the Pagodas
Chapter 10: A Slow Change in American Policy
Chapter 11: The Saigon Press Controversy
Chapter 12: The Final Days of Ngo Dinh Diem
Chapter 13: What Should Be Done in Vietnam?
Epilogue: Return to Vietnam

For all the legions of books published on the Vietnam War, none surpasses one of the earliest and most prescient—David Halberstam's The Making of a Quagmire. Halberstam's shrewd observations of the complexities of Vietnamese politics and the obstacles the U.S. faced early in achieving its goals deeply inform the entire book. A brilliant study that has lost none of its power despite the history that unfolded after its publication, Halberstam's book deserves to be read again and again.