Give Peace a Chance: Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement / Edition 1

by Melvin Small, William D. Hoover, George McGovern

Overview

This work offers an introduction to the best-known antiwar movement in United States history, written by veterans of the Vietnam War and participants in the movement. It examines how the activities of the movement affected the lives of most Americans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815625599
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	06/28/1992
Series:	Peace and Conflict Resolution Series
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.01(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Melvin Small is professor of history at Wayne State University and president of the Council on Peace Research in History. His other books include Resort to Arms, Was War Necessary?, and Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves.

William D. Hoover, professor of history and department chair of the University of Toledo, has published articles on Japanese diplomacy and entrepreneurship and served as the Asian editor for the Biographical Dictionary of Modem Peace Leaders.

Editorial Reviews

This collection of 14 essays, generated by a 1990 conference on the Vietnam antiwar movement, analyzes movement strategies, the role of the military and women in resistance, and the movement in the schools. While the essays contain much useful information, including some new material based on oral histories, they lack the narrative drive of less academic histories. A few of the contributions stand out: historian Maurice Isserman, analyzing the triumph of militance over pacifism in Students for a Democratic Society, says that its rank and file was more diverse and less radical than the leadership; peace activist David McReynolds reflects on how more radical social critics shook pacifists' ``unexamined'' view of America; David Cortwright, a former soldier-activist, traces the socioeconomic profiles of GIs who practiced dissent and disobedience, noting that volunteers opposed the war more than draftees. Particularly stimulating is historian Kenneth J. Heineman's portrait of Kent State University, which, contrary to myth, had been a hotbed of activism. Small wrote Resort to Arms ; Hoover is a professor of history at the University of Toledo. (July)

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