Pavn: People's Army of Vietnam

by Douglas Pike

Book Overview

From the original 34-man Armed Propaganda Team of the 1930s, headed by Vo Nguyen Giap and managed by Ho Chi Minh, the People's Army of Vietnam has grown into the third largest military force in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0891412433
• ISBN13: 9780891412434
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Presidio Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Quite good

This work is quite good, and I recommend it. It was the kind of book which a Vietnam veteran usually picks up with a lot of skepticism. It was probably better than a four-star work, but the chapter on Dau Tranh likely kept me from rating it with five stars. Pike's overall research was masterful, and for the year 1986 when the book was published, was very early on with analysis about not only why we (the U.S.) had to leave, but also why the Vietnamese in the north likely would never give up. Since their old die-hard leaders also wound up dying pretty old, there would have been a long time of misery for everyone. I smiled at the Dau Tranh chapter, because communist governments and organizations always come up with names and slogans for the rationale of their irrationality, usually after the fact. It also didn't matter, as North Vietnam was run by xenophobes who kept their people away from the outside world, and the spirit of this Dau Tranh thing already existed at their poor infantryman's level all along. The soldiers and local cadre probably called it something else. In a way that we would call benignly perverted, these people were fighting for their independence on their terms, in spite of the xenophobes at the top. Independence makes a man fight hard. I wish Dr. Pike had lived long enough to publish a sequel to PAVN. Much of what he said in his book turned out quite accurate and thoughtful. He missed on some other things, but so did we all. I suspect he would have been forthcoming about his misses, and very modest where he was right on.

The strategy of the other side

Douglas Pike performed a valuable service to history by capturing the essence of the North Vietnamese strategy for victory in the Vietnam War. His explanation of the various techniques used to win not only victory on the battlefield, but, more importantly, strategic and political victories over both the American and South Vietnamese opponents, should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in how the United States lost this war. Well written and researched, this book is both enjoyable and disturbing.