Book: The Untold History of the United States

This book, by Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick, covers the history of the US from WW One to Obama. I am just under 300 pages into the book, about where the manner in which the US got stuck in Viet Nam is told.

As one would expect, the book is replete with things that drive the right wing mad, and irritate a great many in the middle and on the left (yes, there are a great many part-time lefties who still believe in "American Exceptionalism" and cannot tolerate being disabused of that insipid notion). The criticism I have read of the book is primarily concerned with  the authors' interpretations, assumptions, and conclusions, rather than with whether or not the material presented is historically accurate.

For a typical, but rather lengthy article about Stone and the book, you can look here.

Released as an over-700-page companion volume to Stone's 10-hour presentation of the material on Showtime, the material is sometimes tough to wade through, but is engrossing and fascinating. Reading the book, one cannot help but wonder what today's world would be like if Henry Wallace had continued as FDR's vice president, rather than the fatuous Truman. I was not surprised when reading the article I linked to above, that the same question was mentioned there.

So if you have a few dozen hours free, and don't mind getting really pissed off, give it a go.

Oliver Stone has lost gravitas with his conspiracy movies about Kennedy, Nixon and the World Trade Center. People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn probably covers the same territory with more authority.

<begin sarcasm> Gee. If only it was possible for a person to read more than one book.
Oh, wait. I read Zinn's book twenty or thirty years ago. <end sarcasm>


Yes, Zinn covers some of the same material as the Stone-Kuznick book, but from a different perspective. As for Stone's loss of gravitas - he's a fucking film maker! And has has stated repeatedly that the JFK film was not a documentary.

This book was essentially Kuznick's product, as Stone is eager to point out.

_Howard wrote:

I am just under 300 pages into the book, about where the manner in which the US got stuck in Viet Nam is told.

As I recall the sequence of events, it went something like this.

1.  Some dissident SVN politician appeals to Washington to aid his country against "Northern Communist aggression" (when really he's lost power in the South and wants a bigger bully to put him back in power)
2.  US sends a small contingent (200?) of "advisors" to train the SVN army and provide non-combat logistical support
3.  Advisors make no difference so of course more are sent in
4.  Advisors increasingly find themselves involved in hot situations, decide they must be armed for self protection
5.  Advisors increasingly come under attack, find they must actively defend themselves
6.  "Security forces" are sent in to protect the advisors
7.  Security forces increasingly make forays into enemy territory to weed out threats
8.  Threats increase, more and more forces needed
9.  Combat troops take on major campaigns
10. After years of staggering losses but no gains, politicians tell us we can't pull out because that would make the sacrifices of those already killed meaningless

Incidentally, Republicans love war, for the exact same reasons they love prisons.

Viet Nam wasn't a "Republican war." Remember LBJ?

You left a few things out of your list. Like China, the Soviet Union, France, rabid anti-communism, corporate greed and influence, etc.