Sunday 12 June 2011

Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars- New Books in History


This is a scholarly book written by a scholar.  The podcast starts off with 30 minutes of scholarly discussion about the business of researching and writing a book like this.  If you like that sort of thing it is 30 minutes you will no doubt want to spend.  If you are mainly interested in the contents of the book you might want to skip to the 29minute point.

The discussion remains a bit scholarly rather than journalistic when we get the actual history.  There is a lot of journalism about the Vietnam Wars, indeed if you are as old as me you will remember actual news broadcasts about it.  The perspective is from the point of view of the Vietnamese and Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader in particular.  Mark Bradley is interested in the facts not the drama, but even so there are still some dramatic moments.  In particular the amazing declaration of independence made in Hanoi in September 1945 is one of the remarkable scenes of history.

Not really told in a way to make it a riveting story, but an interesting podcast nonetheless.

http://newbooksinhistory.com/2009/07/04/mark-bradley-vietnam-at-war/   

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