The Vietnam War

These are starting points for researching the Vietnam War at the Davidson Library. If you need further assistance, consult the reference librarian at the 1st floor Reference Desk, or contact Sherri Barnes, the U.S. History librarian.

Contents:

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
Chronologies, Atlases, and Almanacs
Handbooks
Web Resources
Finding Books
Finding Articles
Primary Resources
Statistics
Bibliographies
Citing Resources

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

• American Decades.
  Ref E169.12 A419 1994 V. 1-9
• Dictionary of the Vietnam War.
  Ref DS557.7 .D53 1988
• Encyclopedia of American History.
  Ref E174 .E53 2003 V. 1-11
• Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War.
  Ref DS557.7 .E53 1996
• Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: a political, social, and miliatry history.
  Ref DS557.7 .E53 1998
• Historical dictionary of Vietnam. 2nd ed.
  Ref DS556.25 .D85 1998
• Political parties of Asia and the Pacific (Greenwood historical encyclopedia of the world's political parties).
  JQ39 .A45 P64 1985.
• St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture.
  Ref E169.1 S764 2000 V. 1-5
• The Vietnam experience: a concise encyclopedia of American literature, songs, and films.
  DS557.73 .H55 1998
• "Vietnam War" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
• War and American popular culture: a historical encyclopedia.
  Ref E181 .W26 1999
• Words of the Vietnam War: the slang, jargon, abbreviations, acronyms, nomenclature, nicknames...
  Ref PE3727 .S7 C57 1990

Chronologies, Atlases, and Almanacs

• Chronology of U.S.-Vietnam Relations
  
  
• Historical atlas of South-East Asia.
  Map & Imagery Lab, Public Area G2361 .S1 H5 1995
• Vietnam, administrative divisions. Scale [ca. 1:7,000,000]
  Map & Imagery Lab 3201s VAR .U5
• Vietnam conflict [cartographic material]. Scale [ca. 1:2,800,000] (E 100--E 110/N 23--N 6).
  Map & Imagery Lab 7586 S8 200-? .H3
• "Vietnam" maps and facts from the Lonely Planet.
• "Vietnam" from WorldAtlas.com
• "Vietnam" from the CIA World Factbook.
  
  
• Vietnam War almanac.
  DS557.7 .S94 1985

Handbooks

• Area handbook for North Vietnam. 1967
  DS557 .A7 A5
• Area handbook for South Vietnam. 1967
  DS557 .A5 A549
• A companion to the Vietnam War.
  DS558 .C66 2002
• Democratic Republic of Vietnam party and government structure. 1975 (poster)
  Govt Info Center, U.S. -- PrEx 3.11:CR 75-31
• Term paper resource guide to twentieth-century United States history.
  E741 .M83 1999
• Vietnam, a country study. 1989
  DS556.3 .V54 1989
• The Vietnam War: handbook of the literature and research.
  DS558 .V58 1993

Web Resources

• American Experience: Vietnam Online
  "Vietnam Online was developed to accompany Vietnam: A Television History, the award-winning television series produced by WGBH Boston."
• The History of the Vietnam War
  Web links and bibliography of resources on the website, Vietnam: Yesterday and Today. "Nearly three decades since the end of the war, Americans, their allies, and the Vietnamese still see and feel its effects. This website is primarily for students and teachers working to understand the Vietnamese Conflict. Its goal is to suggest books, magazine articles, and websites that will be useful, to provide suggestions for effective research, and to provide information about the war and the country of Vietnam."
• Recalling the Vietnam War
  "This research gallery highlights the complex environment in which decisions were made that shattered a generation's perspective on America's role in the world. In their reminiscences, leading players in the drama and analysts of the events conjure up a fascinating portrait of the causes and consequences of U.S. decisions. What emerges is a rich tapestry where the pressures of global and domestic politics, the implications of a flawed strategy, and the influence of human weakness and moral blindness come together to produce a tragic turning point in the history of U.S. foreign policy."
• The Virtual Wall: Vietnam Veterans Memorial
  "Contains personal remembrances of letters, photographs, poetry, and citations honoring those women and men named on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C."

Finding Books

PEGASUS

Search for books and other materials (such as government publications) on PEGASUS, using key words describing your topic in Keyword searches:

Use words that describe your topic until you find material that suits your needs.
Examples:

agent orange herbicides war use ho chi minh city

khe sanh battle veterans medical care vietnamese conflict

Use the asterisk to broaden your search:

desert* [the * truncates a word (retrieves alternate word endings: "deserter(s)," "desertion(s)," etc.)]

Or, try combining the words listed below with the words "vietnamese conflict" in your searches:

aerial operations african american* art asian american* atrocities bibliography campaigns chemical warfare conscientious objectors desertions draft resisters drama

fiction influence journalists literature mass media medical care mexican american* military intelligence missing in action moral and ethical aspects motion pictures personal narrative*

pictorial works poetry press coverage prisoners propoganda protest movement* psychological aspects public opinion refugees underground movement* veteran* women

Finding Articles

Selected list of article databases. From Indexes & Databases, choose from the list provided. [NOTE: accessible from ucsb.edu domain, or via the campus proxy.]

    Expanded Academic ASAP

    Alternative Press Index Archive
    America: History and Life
    Ethnic NewsWatch
    Index to Film Periodicals
    Left Index
    New York Times, historical 1857-1999
    PAIS International
    Readers' Guide Retrospective
    Sociological Abstracts
    Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Also try:
The Air University Library's Index to Military Periodicals

Primary Resources

• Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy: Vietnam
• FBI file on POWs/MIAs in Southeast Asia [microform]. 7 microfilm reels.
  Microfilm Area DS559.4 .F12 1993
• Foreign Office files, United States of America. Series two, Vietnam, 1959-1975 (Public Record Office class FO 371). Pt. 1, Vietnam, 1959-1963 [microform]. 1997. 33 microfilm reels.
  Microfilm Area E183.8 .V5F674 1997
• Newspapers: full text, online versions of the following newspapers are available off the databases page:
  • Los Angeles Times (historical: 1881-1963)
  • New York Times (historical: 1857-1999)
  • Wall Street Journal (historical: 1889-1985)
• The Pentagon papers; the Defense Department history of United State decisionmaking on Vietnam. The Senator Gravel ed. 5 vols. 1971-72. Also on the web: The Pentagon Papers: Gravel Edition
  E183.8 V5 P42
• Personal narratives can be very useful: search PEGASUS using the words, "vietnamese conflict personal narratives"
• Special Collections Department in the UCSB Davidson Library
  • The Alternative Press Collection
    "Contains nearly 300 titles, mostly non-mainstream newspapers in their original form, from the late 1960s to the latter 1970s. Many of the newspapers are from California . . . The topics covered are wide-ranging and include extensive discussion of the Vietnam war, free speech, the role of government vs individual rights, . . ."
  • Isla Vista Collections
    "Includes the Isla Vista Archives, audiovisual materials, photographys, government and university studies and reports, literature and poetry . . . Most materials are from latter 1960s and 1970s, and cover a wide range of issues such as the anti-Vietnam War protests, Isla Vista riots, Isla Vista governance. . ."
• Vietnam War Documents and Photographs
  Links to historical documents from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
• The Virtual Vietnam Archive

Statistics

• Casualties: death in Viet Nam, anguish and survival in America.
  DS559.8 .P7C37 1984
• Statistical information about casualties of the Vietnam conflict
• Vietnam in military statistics: a history of the Indochina wars, 1772-1991.
  DS556.54 .C57 1995

Bibliographies

• America and the Indochina wars, 1945-1990: a bibliographical guide.
  Ref DS550 .B89 1991
• American women writers on Vietnam: unheard voices: a selected annotated bibliography.
  Ref Z1227 .B88 1990
• "Reading the wind": the literature of the Vietnam War: an interpretative critique.
  Asian American Studies PS228 .V5 L66 1987
• The Vietnam conflict; its geographical diminesions, political traumas, & military developments.
  Ref Z3228 .V5 L44
• Vietnam War Bibliography
• Vietnam War literature: a catalog.
  Ref Z3230 .V547 1990
• Vietnam war literature: an annotated bibliography of imaginative works about Americans fighting in Vietnam.
  Ref PS228 .V5 N48 1996
• The wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, 1945-1982: a bibliographic guide.
  Ref Z3228 .V5 B87 1984
• Writing about Vietnam: a bibliography of the literature of the Vietnam Conflict.
  Ref Z3226 .W58 1989

Citing Resources

Citing the Web

Author: Janet Martorana. Last modified: July 12, 2005