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Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam by Elizabeth Partridge (review)

Edited interviews with eight American military personnel and a South Vietnamese refugee, interspersed with chapters about the presidents, protesters, and artists who influenced the war and its aftermath in the United States, present a chronological overview of the Vietnam War. Each approach provides a distinct lens through which to focus on the carnage and peril on one side of the Pacific, even as political maneuvering and anti-war activism rocked America on the other side. The tandem placement of well-written textbook-style information with soul-searing personal dramas makes this compulsively readable while putting events and terms often encountered episodically (e.g., Tet Offensive, Watergate, Woodstock, Agent Orange) into context. Plenty of black and white photographs illuminate the text, allowing readers various visual access points into the period, from overseas news footage to more formal portraiture of suited VIPs on the homefront, to personal snapshots. Thumbnail bios add information about the postwar lives of interviewees; source notes, lists of print and other media resources, and an index are included, as well as an introduction by Partridge on her own view of the war as a teen in 1968 that is well worth reading. EB