Reviews and Videos of PBS Vietnam War Documentary

Reviews of the complete PBS series

Episode by Episode

Christian Appy
Professor of History, University of Massachusetts

http://www.processhistory.org/appy-vietnam-war-ep-1/

subsequent episodes are linked to the lower right


Ron Young
former head of Peace Education Division, American Friends Service Committee

http://ronyoungviews.blogspot.com/?m=1
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development

 http://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2017/09/apeace-movement-perspective-on-vietnam.html
Veterans For Peace

 Talking Points
https://www.veteransforpeace.org/files/6215/0342/9234/VietnamDiscussionGuide.pdf

Reflections on Episodes
http://vietnamfulldisclosure.org/index.php/category/burnsnovick-vietnam-war-documentary/


 Overviews

Michael Stewart Foley
University Professor of American Civilization at Université Grenoble Alpes in France

"The Lies of War
Ken Burns’s The Vietnam War"




 Kurt Jacobsen and Sayeed Hasan Khan 

    "Ken Burns, Vietnam, and the crossover point"

     Focuses on Burns' misinterpretation of  the Tet offensive 

     https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/ken-burns-vietnam-crossover-point-1502583431.html



Bob Buzzanco
professor of history at the University of Houston and author of several books and articles, including Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era.

"Ken Burns’s War Stories"

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/166994
Frances FitzGerald
author of Fire in the Lake

 "The Pity of It All"
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/11/23/ken-burns-vietnam-pity/


 Sophie Quinn-Judge
former AFSC staff in Saigon, PhD research on Ho Chi Minh's time in Moscow

 "Some thoughts on how Vietnamese people are represented in the Burns/Novick documentary"

 http://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2017/10/vietnamese-portrayed-by-burnsnovick.html


Don North
television correspondent in Vietnam

"PBS’ ‘Vietnam War’ Tells Some Truths", a largely favorable review


https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/20/pbs-vietnam-war-tells-some-truths/

Robert Levering
long time anti-war activist and author

"Ken Burns’ powerful anti-war film on Vietnam ignores the power of the anti-war movement"

https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/ken-burns-vietnam-war-ignores-anti-war-movement/


Anh Le
A scathingly negative review by a Vietnamese immigrant living in San Francisco

"KEN BURNS’ VIETNAM DOCUMENTARY MISSES MARK"

http://www.beyondchron.org/ken-burns-vietnam-documentary-misses-mark/



 Jeff Stein
Newsweek

"VIETNAM WAR: NEW KEN BURNS DOCUMENTARY DISMISSES THE ORIGINS OF THE FUTILE, DISASTROUS CONFLICT"

http://www.newsweek.com/vietnam-ken-burns-vietnam-war-doc-documentary-pbs-666582



Christopher Koch
In 1965 he was the first American reporter to visit North Vietnam

 "The Tragic Failure of Ken Burns Vietnam"

 https://medium.com/@ChristopherKoch/the-tragic-failure-of-ken-burns-vietnam-5f945eb40392
Steve Ladd
Draft resistance activist, member of Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee

 "Vietnam antiwar movement had a bigger voice than portrayed in PBS documentary"

 http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Vietnam-antiwar-movement-had-a-bigger-voice-than-12250664.php

Dr. Jeffrey Kimball
professor emeritus Miami University, Oxford, OH

"What’s Missing From the Vietnam War Documentary?"

 http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/167046


 Frank Joyce
Detroit peace and social justice activist

"A Ball O’ Confusion Is Comin' to Your TV: Ken Burns' PBS Series on Vietnam Gives Its Corporate Sponsors Little to Worry About"

http://www.alternet.org/documentaries/ball-o-confusion-comin-your-tv-ken-burns-pbs-series-vietnam-gives-its-corporate
Dr. Maurice Isserman
Professor of American History, Hamilton College

 "Give Peace a Chance"

 https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/ken-burns-lynn-novick-vietnam-war-review
Dr. Jerry Lembcke
Associate Professor Emeritus at College of the Holy Cross

 "Burns and Novick, Masters of False Balancing"

 http://www.publicbooks.org/burns-and-novick-masters-of-false-balancing/
Dr. Todd Gitlin
Professor of Journalism and Sociology at Columbia University

 "Response to Jerry Lembke and Jerry's reply"

 http://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2017/09/todd-gitlin-response-to-jerry-lembcke.html
Jim Laurie
Covered Vietnam and Cambodia for NBC and ABC News.

 "Ken Burns’ VIETNAM WAR - Limits of 18 hours"

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/596e5f26e4b0376db8b65ba2



Dr. Thomas Bass
Professor of English at the University at Albany, State University of New York
Author of The Spy Who Loved Us

"America’s amnesia"

http://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2017/08/thomas-bass-review-of-vietnam-war.html



David Kamp
Vanity Fair Contributing Editor

 "Why The Vietnam War Is Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s Most Ambitious Project Yet"

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/the-vietnam-war-ken-burns-lynn-novicks-documentary



Profile of Ho Dang Hoa, Vietnamese producer in the series

https://gt.foreignpolicy.com/2017/profile/ho-dang-hoa?92cb47faa7=



David Elliott
PBS Series Advisor and Pomona Professor Emeritus  Reflects on "The Vietnam War"

 https://www.pomona.edu/news/2017/09/25-pbs-series-advisor-professor-emeritus-david-elliott-reflects-vietnam-war
Michael Maclear and Douglas Valentine

Video: The Vietnam War and the Phoenix Program: “A Computerized Genocide”

contrasts and links to  Maclear's 1975 documentary about the Phoenix Program "Spooks and Cowboys, Gooks and Grunts"   

http://vietnamfulldisclosure.org/index.php/video-vietnam-war-phoenix-program-computerized-genocide/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-the-vietnam-war-and-the-phoenix-program-a-computerized-genocide/5613184
Jonathan Zimmerman 
teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. 

"What’s So Bad About Ken Burns?"  (defends his role a a populizer of history)

http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-s-So-Bad-About-Ken/241364/

David Zeiger
film maker, "Sir! No Sir!"

 "Vietnam War Protesters have NOTHING to Apologize For"

 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/27/vietnam-war-protesters-have-nothing-apologize
Mel Allen
Editor, Yankee Magazine

 "The Making of The Vietnam War"

 https://newengland.com/yankee-magazine/living/new-england-history/the-making-of-the-vietnam-war/
Ian Parker

 Staff Writer, The New Yorker

 "Ken Burns’s American Canon"

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/ken-burns-american-canon



Dr. Jerry Lembcke
Associate Professor Emeritus at College of the Holy Cross


"Home-from-War War Stories: Myth, Media & the Ken Burns Vietnam Series"   https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/26/home-war-war-stories-myth-media-ken-burns-vietnam-seri

Phil Klay 
Mother Jones

 Interview:  "Ken Burns Never Knew How Wrong He Was About the Vietnam War"

 http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/ken-burns-the-vietnam-war-lynn-novick-documentary/

 Interview with Lynn Novick  "The People We Forget When We Remember the Vietnam War"

 http://www.motherjones.com/media/2017/09/lynn-novick-the-vietnam-war-vietnamese-documentary/

Stephen Sherman

Are PBS and Ken Burns about to Rewrite History Again?  (The pro-war viewpoint)


http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/07/are_pbs_and_ken_burns_about_to_rewrite_history_again.html

Videos of Panel Discussions


















The Atlantic 
Discussion with Burns, Novick, Mai Elliott, Tim O'Brien

 https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/videos/vb.29259828486/10155881594948487/?type=2&theater


Asia Society 
Burns defends omissions

http://asiasociety.org/new-york/vietnam-war-filmmakers-discuss-accusations-bias



Center for Strategic and International Studies 

           Organized by prominent revisionist Mark Moyar













https://twitter.com/CSISPMDH/status/914172014956630016

2 comments:

  1. UnknownOctober 2, 2017 at 4:44 PM

    My husband, Sgt. Howard E. Querry, was KIA in Vietnam 5-10-68. Watching the Ken Burns series was painful. To see the cover ups and outright disregard for lives was appalling to me. After viewing all 18 hours, I was shocked to realize that no widows or children who lost their fathers in the war were part of the documentary. The widows and orphans of the Vietnam War are the "Invisible Casualties of War." We are still invisible after 18 hours of documentary film making. I wrote my memoir, Grief Denied A Vietnam Widow's Story in 1999. It saved my life and helped many veterans to heal from the war. Many have told me reading my story made them cry after years of denied grief. www.griefdenied.com. My daughter was a 7 month fetus when my husband died. She tried to watch the first night of the documentary and had nightmares all night. The repercussions of the trauma on her are great and she has no recourse but to live with the aftermath of the war.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John McAuliffOctober 4, 2017 at 2:54 PM

      Thank you Ms. Laurent. I saw your book is still available on Amazon so I ordered a copy.

      Delete

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