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The Vietnam War as History EssayYou can kill ten-spot of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you lead lose and we will win. Such were the words of Ho Chi Minh referring to France and the States in their wars in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary, who later became Prime Minister (19461955) and President (19461969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ( due north Vietnam). He led the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War until his death. Six years later, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory, and Vietnamese unification followed. The former capital of S step forwardh Vietnam, Saigon, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. The Vietnam War, or the 2nd Indochina Wars, was the longest military conflict in United States history. Furthermore, according to Richard M. Nixon (1985), No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. In Elizabeth Jane Erringt ons book entitled, The Vietnam War as History, it probes the events in Southeast Asia in the thirty years after 1945 through the lenses of history.It is a compilation of the most topical academic interpretations on the origins and effects of the Vietnam War. The contributors hypothesize and discuss diverse aspects of the Vietnam conflicts and clear away numerous fallacies and myths which restrained surround the war. They seek to understand how and why events in Southeast Asia came just about as they did, and the impact they brought about both regionally and globally. The book sheds light on the lessons learned from the war.It is, of course, expected for people and nations to achieve friendship of certain things from past experiences, especially when it is an agonizing one. In this case, however, there are at least 2 problems. First, there is no accord on what should be learned. The people are still divided in their beliefs as to the meaning and significance of the warmany year s after it was considered over. Secondly, in attempting to comprehend something out of the recent past, Americans on both sides of the debate have badly misused or misinterpreted history itself.What and then did we learn out of this conflictthis bloodshed and waste not only of resources but similarly civil lives? To most people, there should not be Vietnams anymore. The United States presidency can do whatever they wish to aid nearby countries or even those halfway-around the globe but cannot fight the war for them. An example is Americas aid in militarization and modernization ( early(a)wise known as Americanization) of the South American drug-war. around believe that when the government sends the guns, it will not take long before it sends the sons.Every time, the United States government tries to help a certain country it raises a specter of another Vietnam that will ensue. On the other hand, conservatives believe that Vietnam was a noble causeand it could have been won. In subsequent conflicts involving Vietnams invasion of Cambodia, they believed that the fundamental frequency error in the Vietnam conflict is not the fact that the United States government interfered rather it was the failure of the latter(prenominal) to win the seemingly endless Vietnam guerilla war.Reading this book will give us a better understanding of the Vietnam conflictwhat caused it to happen and its repercussions to other Asian countries and ultimately the whole world. This book also sheds some light on what has been learned from Vietnam, suggest why these lessons lack validity, and then specify some ways we might learn more valuably from a recent, painful incident Reference Errington, E. J. (1990). The Vietnam War as History. New York. Praeger Publishers.