Description
Book SynopsisMuch that has been written about the Tet Offensive has been misleading. Edwin Moïse shows that the Communist campaign shocked the American public not because the American media exaggerated its success, but because it was a bigger campaign - larger in scale, much longer in duration, and resulting in more American casualties - than most authors have acknowledged.
Trade ReviewEdwin Moise reminds us anew in
The Myths of Tet why he is so highly regarded as a scholar of the Vietnam War. Moise gathers together the primary arguments and disputes that have raged over the 1968 Tet Offensive, teases out the evidence about each, and confronts all of them directly. His arguments are powerful and this book is a must read for everyone interested in the Vietnam War."" - John Prados, author of
Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945–1975 ""The product of prodigious research using both American and Vietnamese sources, Professor Moise’s book clearly and in extraordinary detail exposes some of the most widely-accepted myths about what was arguably the seminal event of the Vietnam War—the 1968 Tet Offensive. This balanced and voluminously-sourced volume provides convincing evidence that the communist Tet Offensive was neither the superbly coordinated strategic surprise that some have claimed, nor was it the total and abject defeat of the Viet Cong that is so often described by others. Professor Moise’s book describes how and why wildly over-optimistic assessments of the situation by leaders on both sides, American and North Vietnamese, often in the face of clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, led to chaos, confusion, and the loss of so many lives on both sides."" - Merle Pribbenow, translator of
Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975
