A survey of the Vietnamese communist experience during the Vietnam War (1954-75) with a focus on high-level decision-making and military planning.

Pierre Asselin is Professor of History and Dwight E. Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations at San Diego State University. His books include A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement (2002) and Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965 (2013). He is co-editor of the forthcoming The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, Volume III: Endings.

Introduction: why Vietnam matters; 1. From Dai Viet to the August Revolution; 2. French War, 1945-54; 3. Interwar period, 1954-65; 4. American war, 1965-68; 5. American war, 1968-73; 6. Civil war, 1973-75; Epilogue. Legacies; Annotated bibliography; Index.