/lit/ - Literature

post should be on /his/ but I highly recommend Stanley Karnow's history. The guy spent decades in Vietnam and had some tremendous insights on the nature of the war from both sides. He goes through a lot of the history leading up to the American involvement, ie french and japanese occupation, which is absolutely critical to understanding the later chapters of the war.

I liked this one. Not being from that generation, I'm leery of even attempting to determine which history is correct from those which are are biased. I can say that this history gave an interesting account of the political history of Vietnam leading into the second World War; it left me with the opinion that Ho Chi Minh would have been happy to play Diem's role if the U.S. would have had the foresight to offer it to him sooner, rather than handing the colony back to France for no discernible reason.