What is in the book
In July 1954, diplomats in Geneva promised the people of Vietnam an election. It was to be held within two years, and it was meant to give a divided country a single government. The vote was promised. It was not held.
What came instead was a war that began, by the Pentagon's count, in 1955 and ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975. It cost somewhere between one and three million Vietnamese lives and more than 58,000 American ones.
This Turbo History short tells the Vietnam War straight, from a valley called Dien Bien Phu to the wall of names in Washington:
- The line drawn at the 17th parallel, and the unsigned promise that went with it
- What Eisenhower really wrote about Ho Chi Minh and the famous 80 per cent, and what he did not
- Two attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin: one that happened, and one that, on the best evidence, did not
- Tet, the battle Hanoi lost and the argument Washington lost
- The war at home: the draft lottery, the marches, Kent State and the Pentagon Papers
- The famous photograph of a helicopter on a rooftop, and the building it does not show
- Why nobody can give a single figure for the dead
The guns went quiet in 1975. The list of names has never been closed.
Read it in under an hour. Free on Kindle Unlimited.
These are not academic books. You will not find footnotes to chase, family trees to memorise, or ten pages on the logistics of a treaty. Every book ends with a page of proper ones to go to next if you want that depth. If you want the story and the big picture in an hour, you are home.
This book is free sometimes. Want to know when?
Vietnam War goes free on Amazon from time to time, along with the rest of the series. Leave your email and we will tell you the moment it does.
More from the series
One figure or one event per book. Under an hour each.
