Primary Source Accounts of the Vietnam War

VOYA - Angela Carstensen

Books in the MyReportLinks.com imprint offer the reader a background on the subject and also send them to recommended Web sites for further research. Each volume begins with a page explaining the MyReportLinks.com Web site, where links to the sites referenced in the text are available, and provides a password to the site. This page is followed by an explanation of primary sources. In Primary Source Accounts of the Vietnam War, a history of the Tet Offensive precedes a brief account of the war beginning in 1954. Obviously intended to inspire immediate interest in the war, if read out of sequence, the book could be confusing to a student. Later chapters cover soldiers' stories (U.S., North and South Vietnamese), the words of nurses and Vietnamese civilians, popular songs in both the U.S. and Vietnam, and a particularly interesting chapter on the press, both its possible influence on the American mood and the experience of American reporters in Vietnam. Interspersed throughout the text are quotes and colorful photographs and illustrations from the period. Many illustrations in these volumes are reproductions of the homepage of an approved Web site, directing the reader to the MyReportsLinks.com site. Written at a middle school level, the books in this series obviously are not for students without Internet access. Although some might find it disheartening to see books leading students to the Internet-they will probably go there anyway, but will the students come back to the books or just keep surfing? - the recommended Web sites in these volumes are exceptional collections of primary sources and are not sites that students would find immediately using Google. Other volumes in the seriesdiscuss the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, the Spanish American War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.