The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War
Volume II
Escalation and Stalemate
In great depth, Volume II examines the escalation of the Vietnam War and its development into a violent stalemate, beginning with the overthrow of Ngô Đình Diệm in 1963 to the aftermath of the 1968 Tet Offensive. This five-year period was the fulcrum of a three-decade struggle to determine the future of Vietnam and was marked by rival spirals of escalation generated by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States. The volume explores the war’s military aspects on all sides, the politics of war in the two Vietnams and the United States, and the war’s international and transnational dimensions in politics, protest, diplomacy, and economics, while also paying close attention to the agency of historical actors on both sides of the conflict in South Vietnam.
Andrew Preston is Professor of American History at Clare College, University of Cambridge. A specialist in the history of US foreign relations, he is the author or editor of nine books, including American Foreign Relations: A Very Short Introduction (2019) and Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (2012). In 2020–1, he was President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.