Mark Philip Bradley is Associate Professor of History, University of Chicago.

Marilyn B. Young is Professor of History, New York University.

• Introduction: Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars- Mark Philip Bradley and Marilyn B. Young


• Part One: American Intervention and the Cold War Consensus


• 1: Explaining the Early Decisions: The United States and the French War, 1945-1954- Mark Atwood Lawrence (University of Texas at Austin)


• 2: No Place to Fight a War: Laos and the Evolution of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam, 1954-1963-Seth Jacobs


• 3: Explaining the Vietnam War: Dominant and Contending Paradigms-Gareth Porter (independent scholar)


• 4: There Aint No Daylight: Lyndon Johnson and the Politics of Escalation- Fredrik Logevall (Cornell University)


• Part Two: The Coming of War in Vietnam


• 5: Through a Glass Darkly: Reading the History of the Vietnamese Communist Party, 1945-1975-Sophie Quinn-Judge (Temple University)


• 6: Vision, Power and Agency: The Ascent of Ngo Dinh Diem, 1945-1954- Edward Miller (Dartmouth University)


• 7: Taking Notice of the Everyday- David Hunt (University of Massachusetts- Boston)


• 8: Co So Cach Mang and the Social Network of War- Heonik Kwon (University of Edinburgh)


• Part Three: Wars End and Endless Wars


• 9: Cold War Contradictions: Toward an International History of the Second Indochina War, 1969-1973- Lien Hang T. Nguyen (University of Kentucky)


• 10: Help Us Tell the Truth about Vietnam: POW/MIA Politics and the End of the American War- Michael J. Allen (North Carolina State University)


• 11: Official History, Revisionist History and Wild History- David W.P. Elliott (Pomona College)


• Suggested Readings

Looks at how interpreations of key events change over time
New essays on Vietnam from every perspective written by a renowned multigenerational group of contributors