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Suggested readings for beginning students of the Vietnam War, aspiring fic writers, or the plain curious.

Vietnam War General Reference

The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War by David L. Anderson New York: Columbia University Press, 2002 Summary: An introductory primer on the Vietnam War, including historical narrative, a mini-encyclopaedic "Vietnam A to Z," chronology, excerpts from historical documents, statistical data, and an extensive annotated bibliography of various media for further research.

U.S. History

	The Best and The Brightest by David Halberstam New York: Random House, 1972 Summary: A chronicle of John F. Kennedy's Camelot and its legacy, with portraits of the men in Washington who conceived and executed the Vietnam War.
	Fire in the Lake by Frances Fitzgerald Boston: Little, Brown, 1972 Summary: A look at traditional Vietnamese society, the war from the perspective of Vietnamese culture, and a critique of the American-Vietnamese relationship.

Memoir

	A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo New York: Holt; Rinehart, and Winston, 1977 Summary: A Marine lieutenant's graphic account of his disillusionment of the war.
	365 Days by Ronald Glasser New York: George Braziller, 1971 Summary: A physician with the U.S. Army Medical Corps recounts his experiences and the stories of soldiers he met while assigned to a U.S. Army hospital in Japan.
	Dispatches by Michael Herr New York: Knopf, 1977 Summary: A war correspondent captures the personal experience of the war.
	Chickenhawk by Robert Mason New York: Viking Press, 1983 Summary: A combat helicopter pilot recounts his experiences flying more than 1,000 missions.
	In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War by Tobias Wolff London: Bloomsbury, 1994 Summary: A young officer assigned to a unit in the Mekong Delta recalls his experiences in a blend of humanity, grotesque humour, and painful truth. submitted by Lorna

Military History

	We Were Soldiers Once... And Young: Ia Drang: The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway New York: Random House, 1992 Summary: A memoir and oral history recalling the first major ground battle between American forces and the North Vietnamese.
	Secret Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines with the Elite Warriors of SOG by John L. Plaster New York: NAL Caliber, 2005 Summary: An account of the covert activities in SOG from 1969 to 1971.

Psychology/Military Studies

Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Shay New York: Scribner, 1994 Summary: A psychiatrist's comparative analysis of Homer's "Iliad" and the Vietnam War, and an examinination of combat trauma, drawing comparisons between the characters of "Iliad" with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Vietnam War Fiction

	Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien New York: Delacorte Press, 1978 Summary: When a young soldier goes AWOL, abandoning the jungles of Indochina for Paris, his platoon set out in pursuit to bring him back to the war, and reality. A story of men fleeing from and rising to the demands of duty, and a story of the imagination.
	The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990 Summary: A classic work of American literature about men at war, and the capacity, as well as the limits, of the human heart and soul.

Other Reference

The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s by David Farber and Beth Bailey New York: Columbia University Press, 2001 Summary: An overview of the Sixties era, including narrative overview; interpretive essays ranging from topics such as the Vietnam War to the sexual revolution; a mini-encyclopaedic "The Sixties A to Z;" topical essays covering everything from cities and suburbs to popular music and sports; "Portrait of a Nation" almanac covering the population, race and ethnicity, health, crime, education, travel and recreation, the economy and labor, politics and elections, popular arts, sports, fashion, and the Vietnam War; a brief chronology; and an extensive annotated bibliography.