Year of the Hawk: America’s Descent into Vietnam, 1965

Historian Warren’s (God, War, and Providence) account of the Vietnam War delivers valuable lessons about the United States’ escalation in Southeast Asia in 1965, and more generally about the lengthy wars that have often entangled U.S. foreign policy. (The recently ended Afghanistan War, for instance, seemed unprecedented but has clear parallels to Warren’s narrative of Vietnam.) His book is geared towards a general audience, whom it won’t lose in the complexities of academic military history. Warren takes readers into the mindsets of key Vietnam War decision-makers in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon. This allows for a fuller perspective on the futile government of South Vietnam; it also illuminates how North Vietnam’s long view of the conflict worked to its advantage. Warren also brings the antiwar movement into focus, with overviews of the impacts of pacifists and civil rights leaders and of public dissent against American involvement in Vietnam. Maps and an extensive bibliography complete the narrative.