The Vietnam War through Film

This book, through studies of eight feature films, each concerned with a particular key stage of the Vietnam War, provides extremely valuable insights on the nature of the Vietnam War. It argues that films, like historical source texts, are vehicles for understanding history. It shows how films, like written sources, pose interpretations, make arguments and assess historical dynamics. Each chapter, each based on a particular film, examines each film as an aesthetic object, explores how key themes in the war are presented and interpreted, and discusses issues to do with how history is made: how historians, using a variety of sources, select material and make interpretations, and how history is not fully comprehensive nor concerned just with accurate portrayal. The book thereby provides an original and imaginative way of teaching and understanding the Vietnam War.