In this groundbreaking book, James William Gibson shatters the misled
assumptions behind both liberal and conservative explanations for
America's failure in Vietnam. Gibson shows how American government and
military officials developed a disturbingly limited concept of war --
what he calls "technowar" -- in which all efforts were focused on
maximizing the enemy's body count, regardless of the means. Consumed by
a blind faith in the technology of destruction, American leaders failed
to take into account their enemy's highly effective guerrilla tactics.
Indeed, technowar proved woefully inapplicable to the actual political
and military strategies used by the Vietnamese, and Gibson reveals how
U.S. officials consistently falsified military records to preserve the
illusion that their approach would prevail. Gibson was one of the first
historians to question the fundamental assumptions behind American
policy, and The Perfect War is a brilliant reassessment of the war --
now republished with a new introduction by the author.