The Vietnam Experience: A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Songs, and Films

by Kevin Hillstrom, Laurie Collier Hillstrom

Overview

The Vietnam War was one of the most painful and divisive events in American history. The conflict, which ultimately took the lives of 58,000 Americans and more than three million Vietnamese, became a subject of bitter and impassioned debate. The most dramatic—and frequently the most enduring—efforts to define and articulate America's ill-fated involvement in Vietnam emerged from popular culture. American jourbanalists, novelists, playwrights, poets, songwriters, and filmmakers—many of them eyewitnesses—have created powerful, heartfelt works documenting their thoughts and beliefs about the war. By examining those works, this book provides readers with a fascinating resource that explores America's ongoing struggle to assess the war and its legacies.

This encyclopedia includes 44 essays, each providing detailed information on an important film, song, or literary work about Vietnam. Each essay provides insights into the Vietnam-era experiences and views of the work's primary creative force, historical background on issues or events addressed in the work, discussion of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the work, and sources for further information. This book also includes an appendix listing of more than 275 films, songs, and literary works dealing with the war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313301834
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/24/1998
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)
Lexile:	1370L (what's this?)

About the Author

KEVIN HILLSTROM and LAURIE COLLIER HILLSTROM are partners in Northern Lights Writers Group. Their other books include International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers: Directors, Biography Today: Environmental Leaders, and Small Business Encyclopedia.

Table of Contents

Advisory Board
Preface
After Our War: Conscientious Objectors and Other Draft Resisters
Apocalypse Now: The Vietnam War as Hallucinatory Experience
Armies of the Night: The March on the Pentagon
"Ballad of the Green Berets": U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam
The Best and the Brightest: Policymakers of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations
Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans: African-Americans and Vietnam
"Born in the U.S.A.": Returbaning Home from the War
Born on the Fourth of July: Disabled Veterans in America
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam: Military Advisor John Vann and His Experiences in Vietnam
Casualties of War: Atrocities in Vietnam
Coming Home: Antiwar Vietnam Veterans
The Deer Hunter: The Fall of Saigon
Dispatches: Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive
Fields of Fire: GI View of the Antiwar Movement
Fire in the Lake: Impact of the War on Vietnamese Society
"Fortunate Son": Vietnam as a Working-Class War
Friendly Fire: "Friendly Fire" Casualties and Stateside Grief
Full Metal Jacket: Lessons of Basic Training
Go Tell the Spartans: U.S. Advisory Effort in Vietnam
Going After Cacciato: Desertion during the Vietnam War
The Green Berets: U.S. Media Coverage of the War
The Hanoi Hilton: American POWs
Hearts and Minds: American Apathy after the U.S. Withdrawal
Home Before Morning: American Nurses in Vietnam
In Country: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
In Pharaoh's Army: "Survivor's Guilt"
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam: Robert McNamara and the War
The Killing Fields: The Khmer Rouge Takeover of Cambodia
"Masters of War": The Military-Industrial Complex
Meditations in Green: Drug Abuse in Vietnam
"Ohio": The Kent State Shootings
"Okie from Muskogee": Anthems of the "Silent Majority"
Paco's Story: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Vietnam Veterans
Platoon: Decline in U.S. Military Performance in Vietnam: Causes and Consequences
The Quiet American: American Intervention in the French-Viet Minh War
Rambo: First Blood, Part II: The Vietnam War and American Self-Image in the 1980s
The Real War: American Military Strategy and Its Toll on Vietnam's Land and People
A Rumor of War: "Americanization" of the War
Song of Napalm: Vietnam Veteran Poetry
Sticks and Bones: Postwar Reintegration into Family Networks
The Things They Carried: The War in Quang Ngai Province
The 13th Valley: "Humping the Boonies": Vietnam's Terrain and Climate
"We Gotta Get Out of This Place": Rock and Roll Soundtrack to the War
Winners and Losers: Women Correspondents in Vietnam
Other Notable Works About the Vietnam War: Fictional Films, Documentary Films, Songs, Fiction, Nonfiction (Memoirs and Oral Narratives), Poetry, Plays
Index

Editorial Reviews

Surveys popular expressions of such aspects as conscientious objectors and other draft resisters, policymakers of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, atrocities in Vietnam, desertion, the Kent State shootings, postwar reintegration into family networks, the rock and roll soundtrack to the war, and women war correspondents. Each of the 43 essays explores several works in terms of inspiration, circumstances surrounding the creation, plot summary, critical reaction, and sources for further reading. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews