Henry Buhl Library: U.S. Military History: Vietnam Conflict

Encyclopedias, Books & Films

Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: a Political, Social, and Military History
Call Number: Ref DS 557.7 .E53 1998 v.1-3
Volumes 1 and 2 provide A to Z entries on topics and persons related to the War. Volume 2 also includes bibliographies and a chronology of the War. Volume 3 is a collection of primary documents.
Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War
Call Number: Oversz DS 557.7 .E53 1996
An A to Z guide to topics of the Vietnam War, with major essays on subjects including American Perspectives, Colonialism, Media and the War, Vietnamese Perspectives and others. A chronology and full-text of the Paris Peace Accords are also included.

Salem History Online This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to the Great Lives & Great Events encyclopedias as well as the Decades in America series (1920's through the 2000's), and the Defining Documents series.
World at War: Conflict and Society This link opens in a new window
Provides background information, timelines, primary documents and more related to wars beginning in medieval Europe and continuing to the 21st century Middle East conflict.

The Vietnam War: an Intimate History
Call Number: Ref DS 557.7 .W368 2017
The authors draw on dozens and dozens of interviews in America and Vietnam to give us the perspectives of people involved at all levels of the war: U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers and their families, high-level officials in America and Vietnam, antiwar protestors, POWs, and many more.
The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975
Call Number: Ref DS 559.92 .D56 E44 2003 v.1-2
Includes essays discussing various aspects of the War, such as the revolution, resistance, politics, strategy, civil war, and more.
Words of the Vietnam War: the Slang, Jargon, Abbreviations, Acronyms, Nomenclature, Nicknames, Pseudonyms, Slogans, Specs, Euphemisms, Double-Talk, Chants, and Names and Places of the Era of United States Involvement in Vietnam
Call Number: Ref DS 557.7 .C57 1990
Encyclopedia of Conflicts since World War II
Provides historical background, key dates, names of participants, type of conflict, and small bibliographies for wars and conflicts fought since WWII.
Postwar America
Call Number: Ref E 169.12 .P654 2007 v. 1-4
Provides detailed coverage of all the remarkable developments within the United States during this period, as well as their dramatic impact on the rest of the world. Covers specific persons, groups, concepts, events, geographical locations, organizations, and cultural and technological phenomena.

American National Biography This link opens in a new window
Contains over 19,000 biographies of significant, influential, or notorious figures from American history written by prominent scholars. The American National Biography (ANB) is the successor to The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB).
Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window
Contains a searchable collection of over 35,000 images as well as biographical profiles, feature articles, interviews, essays, book reviews, speeches, or obituaries.
Salem History Online This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to the Great Lives & Great Events encyclopedias as well as the Decades in America series (1920's through the 2000's), and the Defining Documents series.

Suggested search terms

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975
United States -- Foreign relations -- Vietnam
Vietnam -- Foreign relations -- United States
United States -- Politics and government -- 1961-1963
United States -- Politics and government -- 1963-1969

Find War Documentaries

Search for War (Nonfiction)

Highlighted Titles

The Fall of Saigon
Call Number: DVD 791
Part of the American Experience series. Includes primary source material.
Vietnam: How We Went to War
Call Number: DVD 782
Includes Primary source material.
Battle for Dien Bien Phu
Call Number: DVD 776

Find Fictional Accounts of War

Search for War Films

HENRY
The Library Catalog

Journal Article Databases

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
Covers the War from the American perspective.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers the War from the perspectives of the rest of the world.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles dating back to the 1800s. Both primary and secondary sources are available here. For primary documents, be sure to limit to dates during and shortly after the War.
Military & Government Collection This link opens in a new window
Offers full text of 300+ journals providing current news and information pertaining to all branches of the military and government.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Large collection of full-text scholarly articles and books supporting research in the humanities and social sciences.
Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Covers a wide range of subject matter in both popular and scholarly periodicals.
Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 4,600 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,500 journals and nearly 10,000 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. This scholarly collection offers unmatched full text coverage of information in many areas of academic study including: animal science, anthropology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, materials science, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, pharmaceutical sciences, physics, psychology, religion & theology, veterinary science, women's studies, zoology, and many other fields. Academic Search Complete offers critical information from many sources unique to this massive collection. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.

Journal articles are very specific.

Finding articles is easier after you have read up on your topic.

Use more than one article database.

No database searches everything.
For thorough research, use more than one database and try different search terms.

A to Z List of Journals
Always check the A to Z list to see if we have access to the journal title and date of publication you need!

Need an article that isn't full text? Access the request form below.

Document Delivery Forms

Remember, scholarship is international.

You may come across some great articles in which the titles (and thus the articles) are not in English.

So, when you can, it is a good idea to limit your searches to articles in English.

Primary Sources

Defining Documents in American History: the Vietnam War (1956-1975)
Call Number: DS 557.4 .V54 2015
Defining Documents in American History: Vietnam War offers students a variety of tools of historical importance to study and analyze vital documents from the Vietnam War.
Defining Documents in American History: The 1960s (1960-1969)
Call Number: E 841 .A19 2016
This important resource provides students and researchers new insights into the 1960s in the U.S., through an in-depth analysis of forty important primary source documents and their lasting effect on American history.
Defining Documents in American History: The 1970s (1970-1979)
Call Number: E 855 .A14 2016
This important resource provides students and researchers new insights into the 1970s in the U.S., through an in-depth analysis of forty important primary source documents and their lasting effect on American history.
Understanding U. S. Military Conflicts Through Primary Sources
Call Number: Ref E 181 .U53 2016 v. 1-4
* Covers benchmark documents in U.S. diplomatic and military history from 14 conflicts.
Pentagon Papers: the Defense Department History of United States Decision Making in Vietnam
Call Number: E 183.8 .V5 P425 1993
Eyewitness Vietnam: Firsthand Accounts From Operation Rolling Thunder to the Fall of Saigon
Call Number: Oversz DS 557.7 .E93 2006
Eyewitness Vietnam traces the history of America's longest war, illuminating its causes, battles, and aftereffects, its unfolding and unraveling.
Book comes with a CD-ROM. Ask for this item at the Check-Out Desk.

Veterans History Project
(Library of Congress) -- First hand accounts from U.S. Veterans representing World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War and the Afghanistan & Iraq conflicts.

Presidential Libraries Websites

Visit these sites for pertinent information on Vietnam and its place in the various administrations.

American Presidency Project
Call Number: Search HENRY by President as AUTHOR for call numbers
Search the papers of the presidents from George Washington through Joe Biden. Users can search by president, date, keyword, document type, and more.
Foreign Relations of the United States
Volumes since the Truman administration are available online from the Department of State, along with some volumes pre-Truman. 150 volumes in all. Users can browse volumes or by administration.

Military & Government Collection This link opens in a new window
Access to journal and magazine articles, books, government documents, speech transcripts, etc. relating to the military and government. Both primary and secondary sources are available here.

National Security Archive
Some highlighted document collections are: CIA's Vietnam histories; JFK and the Diem Coup; Fighting the War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973; Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later; & Intelligence and Vietnam: the top secret 1969 State Department study.
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"An independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States."

Search by Author to find

Major Players

Dean Rusk
Robert McNamara
Henry Kissinger
William Westmoreland
William J. Fulbright
Martin Luther King, Jr.
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Daniel Ellsberg
Clark Clifford
Ho Chi Minh
Ngo Dinh Diem
Vo Nguyen Giap

Reporters

Bernard Fall
David Halberstam
Morley Safer
Walter Cronkite

Battlefield Footage

Battlefield Vietnam: From Dien Bien Phu to Peace with Honor
Call Number: DVD 3046-3048
Battlefield Vietnam : Tet!
Call Number: DVD 3043-3045

Other Primary Source Films

Cronkite Remembers: a Remarkable Century
Call Number: DVD 1499-1501
Walter Cronkite looks back at the 20th century and his role in reporting it.
Hearts and Minds
Call Number: DVD 786
Includes interviews with several people tied to the War, including Vietnamese leaders and American presidents.
Vietnam: a Soldier's Diary
Call Number: DVD 783
Includes news clips, as well as interviews with soldiers during the War and now.
Vietnam: a Television History
Call Number: DVD 788 or 2901
Includes footage from news and government archives.
The Vietnam War with Walter Cronkite
Call Number: DVD 601-603
Includes on-the-scene reports with CBS News correspondents during the War.

Search Across Multiple Titles

The New York Times (1851-current) (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Coverage dates: 1851-2007
Coverage dates: 1851-current
Readers' Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing to over 500 magazines from 1890 to 1982 to support cultural and historical studies.

Individual Journals & Magazines

Time
Coverage: 1923 - Present
Vital Speeches of the Day
Coverage: 1934 - Present
The Nation
"An unabashedly left-wing publication." Coverage: 1865 -- Present (1 month embargo)
National Review
Coverage: 1955 -- Present
The New Republic
Covers "opinion on politics and the arts." Considered to be "solidly middle-of-the-road." Coverage: 1914 -- Present
Harper's
Access the Harper's Archive, 1850 - present. Full text availability.
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Harper’s is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S., beginning in June 1850 when it was launched as Harper's New Monthly Magazine
Congressional Digest
Coverage: 1921 - Present
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Coverage: 1890-Present via JSTOR (2008 - Present is available via Sage)
Atlantic (sometimes called Atlantic Monthly)
Coverage: 1857 - Present Full-text beginning in 1993 (earlier years available on microfilm).
US News and World Report
Coverage: 1933 - Present. Full-text beginning in 1990 (earlier years available on microfilm).
Current History
Coverage: 1914-2004 (on microfilm)

Suggested search terms

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975
United States -- Foreign relations -- Vietnam
Vietnam -- Foreign relations -- United States
United States -- Politics and government -- 1961-1963
United States -- Politics and government -- 1963-1969

Simply, add "primary source" to your search using the Note field.

Visit the locate primary sources page for a refresher.

HENRY
The Library Catalog