To Reason Why: The Debate about the Causes of U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War

This book is about the past and continuing debate over the causes of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It brings together readings that best exemplify the widely varying answers that historians, political scientists, social scientists, policymakers, journalists, and novelists have given to the essential question of American involvement: why did the U.S. intervene diplomatically and militarily in Vietnam between 1945 and 1975" -from the Preface To Reason Why breaks new ground in covering and analyzing this issue. Kimball has gathered together thirty-eight readings - including speeches, interviews, and articles - that best exemplify the conflicting ideas and theories about the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Among these thirty-eight readings are excerpts from David Halberstam, Daniel Ellsberg, Frances FitzGerald, Henry Kissinger, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

Jeffrey Kimball is a professor at Miami University of Ohio and has taught courses on diplomacy, peace, war, imperialism, popular culture, the United States, American presidents, and Western civilization since 1968. His books include Nixon's Vietnam War (1998; winner of both the Ferrell Prize and the Ohio Academy of History Book Award) and The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy (2004; winner of the Arthur S. Link/Warren F. Kuehl Prize). Kimball is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters on diplomacy, war, peace, and historiography, has served as President of the Peace History Society, and has been a Nobel Institute Senior Fellow and a Woodrow Wilson International Center Public Policy Scholar.