From People’s War to People’s Rule: Insurgency, Intervention, and the Lessons of Vietnam - Softcover

Lomperis, Timothy J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807845779 ISBN 13: 9780807845776

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996

Synopsis

Timothy Lomperis persuasively argues the ironic point that the lessons of American involvement in Vietnam are not to be found in any analysis of the war by itself. Rather, he proposes a comparison of the Vietnam experience with seven other cases of Western intervention in communist insurgencies during the Cold War era: China, Indochina, Greece, the Philippines, Malaya, Cambodia, and Laos.

Lomperis maintains that popular insurgencies are manifestations of crises in political legitimacy, which occur as a result of the societal stresses caused by modernization. Therefore, he argues, any intervention in a 'people’s war' will succeed or fail depending on how it affects this crisis. The unifying theme in the cases Lomperis discusses is the power of land reform and electoral democracy to cement political legitimacy and therefore deflect revolutionary movements. Applying this theory to the ongoing Sendero Luminoso insurgency in Peru, Lomperis makes a qualified prediction of that conflict’s outcome. He concludes that a global trend toward democratization has produced a new era of 'people’s rule.'

About this title

About the Author

Timothy J. Lomperis is professor and chair of the department of political science at Saint Louis University.

From the Back Cover

Timothy Lomperis persuasively argues the ironic point that the lessons of American involvement in Vietnam are not to be found in any analysis of the war by itself. Rather, he proposes a comparison of the Vietnam experience with seven other cases of Western intervention in communist insurgencies during the Cold War era: China, Indochina, Greece, the Philippines, Malaya, Cambodia, and Laos.

Reviews

In his third work on the Vietnam War (after The War Everyone Lost?And Won, LJ 1/84, and Reading the Wind, Duke Univ., 1986), Lomperis, a former army intelligence officer in Vietnam and currently an instructor in political science at West Point, places the war within the broader context of Communist insurgency against Western-supported regimes throughout the Cold War. Lomperis examines and compares the Chinese liberation struggle; civil wars in Greece, Cambodia, and Laos; rebellion in the Philippines; and the carnage in Peru so that the sophisticated reader can see the similarities and differences among these conflicts and the pivotal roles played by insurgents, local governments, and foreign powers. Each insurrection is well documented with conclusions buttressed by Lomperis's obvious expertise in his field. Marred only by a tendency to lapse into technical jargon, his work belongs in academic libraries, but only public libraries with strong Vietnam collections should consider adding a scholarly work such as this.?John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807845779
• ISBN 13: 9780807845776
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 456