Christian G. Appy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“The Vietnam War: What Are We Fighting For?”
The Paley Center for Media
May 14, 2008

Christian G. Appy (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), historian and author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides, shares the historical insights gleaned from his investigation of the Vietnam War from American and Vietnamese perspectives. His extensive research, which involved hundreds of oral history interviews with American veterans as well as Vietnamese civilians and soldiers from both sides of the conflict, adds an important dimension to the staggering human cost of the war. In this lecture to New York City teachers, he relates some of the stories he heard in the course of his research, and provides evidence for his conclusion that the outcome of the war was determined largely by the political will of the Vietnamese people.