"The essays contain much useful information, including some new material based on oral histories."—Publishers Weekly
"The book, a compilation of 14 essays, includes longtime VVA member Bill Crandell's history of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Vietnam veteran and Texas A&M history professor Terry H. Anderson's look at the way the brass responded to antiwar GIs. The GIs chapters provide a mass of information about the desperate GI movement during the war."—The Veteran
Description
Written by veterans of the Vietnam War and participants in the organized opposition to it, this book examines how the activities of America’s most important a mi war movement affected the lives of its citizens and its government.
Relying on oral histories and recently available archival material, the authors consider the movement’s strategies and tactics, its leaders and its rank and file, and describe the difficulties encountered by peace activists in their efforts to build politically effective organizations.
What emerges from this collection is that the millions of Americans who fought against the government’s policies in Southeast Asia participated in one of the most potent—and complex—oppositional movements in modern history.
Table of Contents
PART ONE: Antiwar Movement Strategies and Tactics
1. The Counterculture and the Antiwar Movement, David Farber
2. You Don’t Need a Weatherman but a Postman Can Be Helpful: Thoughts on the History of SDS and the Antiwar Movement, Maurice Isserman
3. CALCAV and Religious Opposition to the Vietnam War, Mitchell K. Hall
4. Pacifists and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, David McReynolds
5. “May Day” 1971: Civil Disobedience and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, George W. Hopkins
PART TWO: The Military and the Antiwar Movement
6. The GI Movement and the Response from the Brass, Terry H. Anderson
7. GI Resistance During the Vietnam War, David Cortright
8. Vietnam Veterans and War Crimes Hearings, Elliott L. Meyrowitz And Kenneth J. Campbell
9. They Moved the Town: Organizing Vietnam Veterans Against the War, William F. Crandell
PART THREE: Women and the Antiwar Movement
10. “Not My Son, Not Your Son, Not Their Sons”: Mothers Against the Vietnam Draft, AMY SWERDLOW
11. ‘Women Power” and Women’s Liberation: Exploring the Relationship Between the Antiwar Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement, Alice Echols
12. The Women Who Left Them Behind, Nina S. Adams
PART FOUR: The Antiwar Movement in the Schools
13. “Look Out Kid, You’re Gonna Get Hit!”: Kent State and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, Kenneth J. Heineman
14. Conscience and the Courts: Teachers and Students Against War and Militarism, Charles F. Howlett
About the Author
Melvin Small is the author Resort to Arms, Was War Necessary? , and Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves.
William D. Hoover has published articles on Japanese diplomacy and entrepreneurship and served as the Asian editor for the Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders. Small and Hoover co-organized the Vietnam Antiwar Movement Conference in honor of peace historian Charles DeBenedetti, who is the inspiration for this book.
July 1992