Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968

(Hardback)

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Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 19651968is the long-awaited sequel to the immensely influentialTriumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 19541965. Like its predecessor, this book overturns the conventional wisdom using a treasure trove of new sources, many of them from the North Vietnamese side. Rejecting the standard depiction of U.S. military intervention as a hopeless folly, it shows Americas war to have been a strategic necessity that could have ended victoriously had President Lyndon Johnson heeded the advice of his generals. In light of Johnsons refusal to use American ground forces beyond South Vietnam, General William Westmoreland employed the best military strategy available. Once the White House loosened the restraints on Operation Rolling Thunder, American bombing inflicted far greater damage on the North Vietnamese supply system than has been previously understood, and it nearly compelled North Vietnam to capitulate.

The book demonstrates that American military operations enabled the South Vietnamese government to recover from the massive instability that followed the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem. American culture sustained public support for the war through the end of 1968, giving South Vietnam realistic hopes for long-term survival. Americas defense of South Vietnam averted the imminent fall of key Asian nations to Communism and sowed strife inside the Communist camp, to the long-term detriment of Americas great-power rivals, China and the Soviet Union.

Reviews

THE LONG-AWAITED SEQUEL TOTRIUMPH FORSAKEN: THE VIETNAM WAR, 19541965

This second book in what will be a seminal trilogy is impeccably researched and elegantly written.Mark Moyar availed himself of newly available materials to shed fresh light and understanding on a crucial period of the Vietnam War.Triumph Regainedposes a compelling reinterpretation that is bound to make uncomfortable those who contributed to or accepted the conventional wisdom on the war that emerged across the past half century.

H. R. McMaster, author ofDereliction of DutyandBattlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World

Triumph Regainedexpertly chronicles the grit, courage, and sacrifice of the American fighting man during the Vietnam War and provides clear-eyed analysis of the strategic and political imperatives that motivated both sides of the conflict. Mark Moyar is reclaiming the honorable legacy of a generation of American warriors and proving the truth of Ronald Reagans belief that Vietnam was a noble cause. We should be proud of the patriotic Americans who served in Vietnam and never forget that politicians in Washington squandered their sacrifices.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)

No serious scholar has done more in recent years to challenge the entrenched consensus on the Vietnam War than historian Mark Moyar.InTriumph Regained, he presents bold new insights that compel us to question the conventional wisdom on the war from the onset of its Americanization in 1965 to the Tet Offensive of 1968.Captivating from start to finish, the book is as audacious as it is thought-provokingand necessary.

Pierre Asselin, professor of history and Dwight E. Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations, San Diego State University

Using newly available documents and re-interpreting old, Moyarinvites us to revisit the 1970s clichd narratives of strategy andpolicy in the early years of America's war in Vietnam.

Jeffrey Race, author ofWar Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province

Author Bio

Mark Moyar holds the William P. Harris Chair in Military History at Hillsdale College. His past academic appointments include the Kim T. Adamson Chair of Insurgency and Terrorism at the U.S. Marine Corps University and fellowships at the Joint Special Operations University and Texas A&M University. During the Trump administration, he served in the U.S. Agency for International Development as the Director of the Office of Civilian-Military Cooperation. The author of six previous books on military history, diplomatic history, grand strategy, leadership, and international development, he has also written articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. The first volume of his Vietnam War trilogy, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965, was published in 2006, and it became the subject of an essay collection entitled Triumph Revisited: Historians Battle for the Vietnam War. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Cambridge.