Outstanding book

The Vietnam War: A Concise International History
Mark Atwood Lawrence
(Oxford, 2008, 214 pages)

I have the highest praise for this book. Very well written, it tells the Vietnam story from a wide perspective that gives us both American, Vietnamese and European points of view about the war and its various roots, strategies and consequences. That so much can be told in so little space is an achievement in itself. This is historical writing at its best.

Although there are many differences between Vietnam and Afghanistan, there also are frightening similarities, particularly with regard to the American mindset in defining its goals and defining strategies with which to achieve them. The Middle East is more likely than not, in my view, to become Obama's Vietnam, and this will be another U.S. foreign affairs tragedy.

It is discouraging how little we learn from history. Indeed, we seem to learn nothing.