Reddit reviews Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

Most books pertaining to the American war in Vietnam trace its origin in the French conflict, though. If that leaves one longing for more, Street without Joy and Hell in a Very Small Place were recently reprinted, and Fredrik Logevall's Embers of War fills any holes left by Bernard Fall, really.

Embers of War

One of the best historiographies ever composed on USA involvement in Viet-Nam:

https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Lake-Vietnamese-Americans-Vietnam/dp/0316159190/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505052020&sr=1-1&keywords=fire+in+the+lake+by+frances+fitzgerald

Pretty good:

https://www.amazon.com/Embers-War-Empire-Americas-Vietnam/dp/0375756477/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505068806&sr=1-1&keywords=embers+of+war+logevall

Pretty good:

https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505068845&sr=1-1&keywords=vietnam+a+history

For third party accounts on the splits in Vietnamese thought during and immediately following colonization, see:

• Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam (https://www.amazon.com/Misalliance-United-States-South-Vietnam/dp/0674072987/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1491375687&sr=8-2&keywords=ngo+dinh+diem)
  
• Ember's of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam (https://www.amazon.com/Embers-War-Empire-Americas-Vietnam/dp/0375756477)
  
  For first party accounts from the South Vietnamese who actually fought the war, and their reasons for fighting, see:
  
  
• The Twenty-Five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon (https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Five-Year-Century-Vietnamese-Remembers/dp/1574411438/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491375844&sr=1-1&keywords=the+twenty-five+year+century)
  
• Steel and Blood: South Vietnamese Armor and the War for Southeast Asia (https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Blood-South-Vietnamese-Southeast/dp/1591149193/ref=pd_sim_14_17?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1591149193&pd_rd_r=J4VPFGVBA417KNR11DVM&pd_rd_w=C89QH&pd_rd_wg=LoxSx&psc=1&refRID=J4VPFGVBA417KNR11DVM)
  
  You will see that it's not as black and white as you make it out to be, and they weren't serving simply to be slaves to the white man. Many of the South Vietnamese army officers previously fought against France during the war for independence, but then fought against the communists, particularly because of the 'land reforms' that the communists implemented right after independence.
  
  See "Paradise of the Blind" https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Blind-Duong-Thu-Huong/dp/0060505591
  
  Regarding the women, there aren't any hard statistics on how many date or marry white men, but a few years ago there were around 100,000 marriages to foreigners per year (http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/100000-vietnamese-women-marry-foreigners-each-year-556.html). This isn't broken down by nationality or race unfortunately.
  
  In my own personal experience, I worked in Saigon for 2.5 years and many of the local Vietnamese female lawyers in my office were daughters of Northern communist government officials and/or veterans, and a few of them dated WM expats. A good friend of mine, whose father was a North Vietnam army veteran, is currently engaged to an Italian guy. So it's not just the 'losers' of that war who will date or marry whites.