"A Time For War" is very much worth the read for those wishing insight into the political cauldron which became the Vietnam War, but prepare yourself for some really dry reading if your tastes run more toward battle action...Author Robert D. Schulzinger goes into much detailed explanation of the timeline involving US participation in the political and diplomatic activities that drew America into an ever widening spiral of war and worldwide tension in Southeast Asia...
Beginning with the first tentative diplomatic moves as key players jockeyed for position for control of Indochina, each having their own agendas and goals, the author leads us from the first US participation, and first American military death in 1945 onto a path that grows more dark and sticky with each step...Six US Presidents each put his unique stamp on the events which would dictate the shape and direction for Southeast Asian history, all of which might have been written differently if two earlier Presidents had not spurned the efforts of prior nationalist groups...
Hindsight is always easy and accurate when analyzing events, but to his credit, the author sticks to his timeline with names, dates and documentation and little speculation on what might have been between 1945 and 1975...The book will be invaluable for researchers needing to know who said what to whom while tracing the convoluted path of power seekers trying to gain control of territory the value of which was always more symbolic than substantive...
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