14 of the Best Books on the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War lasted from 1955 to 1975, with America’s military involvement in the 1960s and 1970s being what many remember most. But it was actually part of a much larger unification struggle known as the Indochina Wars. This series of conflicts took place across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and involved fighting against France, Japan, France (again), and finally the United States.

At the nexus of this was a brutal civil war between the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam in North Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam in South Vietnam. After the unification of the two Vietnamese states into the modern-day Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976, Vietnam would go on to fight two wars against neighboring erstwhile allies Cambodia and China, which lasted into the 1980s.

A war that long leaves a lasting cultural impact, and the Vietnam War’s influence can be felt in the films and music of the era, the words we use, and in literature. Below is a list of some of the best fiction and nonfiction books on the Vietnam War that offer perspectives from the North, the South, and the superpowers that backed them.

These fascinating reads delve into the lives of generals, grunts, the people they fought, the people they loved, and what drove them. It’s not an exhaustive list because the story of the Vietnam War, even 50 years after the fall of Saigon, is still being written and may never be finished, but it could be a good start for the student of history who is eager to learn more about this monumental conflict.

1. The Best Nonfiction Books About the Vietnam War
2. The Best Fiction Books About the Vietnam War

The Best Nonfiction Books About the Vietnam War

Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides by Christian Appy

The first book on the list is the most critical one. Christian Appy, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, meticulously brings together participants of almost every conceivable rank and nationality for this sprawling oral history that manages to be utterly comprehensive without feeling overstuffed. 

You may recognize some names (even some from this list) as you speed through Patriots, but everyone who graces the pages does so as equals with stories to tell. For those curious about the war and looking for an overarching history of it, this is probably the best entry point. It’s a good refresher for those who study military history as well.

If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O’Brien

If you’ve gone to high school in the past 30 years, odds are you’ve been assigned at least one of Tim O’Brien’s books to read in English class. His most notable works are fictionalized accounts of his tour of duty in Vietnam, where he served as a soldier in the U.S. Army, and include 1978’s Going After Cacciato (winner of the 1979 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction) and 1990’s The Things They Carried, which remains his best-known novel.

Before those books, however, was If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. Published in 1973 and taking its title from a marching cadence of the era, O’Brien uses Combat Zone as a chance to take the reader on a guided tour from his childhood in a small Minnesota town—where WWII and Korean War veterans were seen as the model for manhood—to basic training in Washington state. From there, the rest of the book explores different parts of Vietnam and the Alpha Company, giving readers a chance to learn hard moral truths about combat.

Overall, the Vietnam War is a common theme for much of O’Brien’s rich output. If Appy’s Patriots is a good jumping-off point for the war’s wider narrative scope, then Combat Zone serves the same function, but offers more insight into an American soldier’s day-to-day life.

Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam, edited by Keith Weller Taylor

Stories about the Vietnam War are often neatly divided into two factions: Washington versus Moscow; Americans versus the North Vietnamese. Those who are coming into the topic cold, therefore, could be forgiven for not realizing that there was another country in the mix—a country whose demise would herald the end of the war in 1975. 

By this, we mean the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), commonly known as South Vietnam. South Vietnam is often remembered for the endemic corruption in its government and military, as well as its unhappy—but necessary—reliance on American dollars, materials, and eventually fighting men in order to see one more day.

Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam doesn’t wave away these facts. Instead, it adds much-needed context and humanity to the story of a country that—following the fall of Saigon in 1975—many seemed eager to forget. Edited by Keith Weller Taylor as part of Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program Publications, this collection of essays allows the reader to gain an accessible but thorough appreciation both for this country of yesteryear as well as why its scattered diaspora continues to gather every year to reminisce, raise the yellow flag with three red horizontal stripes, and remember the life that ended in Black April.

Ho Chi Minh: A Life by William J. Duiker

Plenty of big profiles pop up in the history of the Vietnam War: Soviet premiers, American presidents, the various strongmen who ran South Vietnam for a time. But to know about the war—from what made it to the rise of modern Vietnam—you have to know about Ho Chi Minh. 

This communist revolutionary, poet, statesman, and one-time pastry chef saw it all and spent most of his life fighting for a unified Vietnam that he would never see, though his likeness is everywhere, from the current capital, Hanoi, to the former southern capital that now bears his name.

Yet for all his stature, many details of his early life have remained unclear, especially in English-language histories. William Duiker’s highly regarded 2000 biography, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, is considered the most detailed book on this enigmatic subject, which would explain its 795-page length. While it may not be a beach read, it is the first and last (English) word on the man once known as “Uncle Ho.”

The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War by Andrew E. Hunt

As the war became more and more unpopular, returning veterans often found themselves feeling alienated from society. They were frequently shunned in traditional veterans’ organizations like the VFW and the American Legion, too. The leadership in those organizations tended to be veterans from WWII and Korea, and they frequently—and misguidedly—looked down on this younger class of veterans as “losing the war.” 

The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) sprang up in response. This truly unique American organization was founded in 1967 and was the first widespread group for current and former American soldiers, sailors, and airmen who were opposed to the government’s Vietnam policy. It rapidly became one of the most influential anti-war organizations. (So much so that Playboy even gave them free ad space.)

Essentially, in being rejected by the so-called “Class of ’45,” servicemen returning from Vietnam were able to use the counterculture and networks of G.I. coffeehouses to come together anyway. Famous members include (or have included) author and co-founder Ron Kovic and former Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry. 

The Turning, whose title is taken from the latter’s 1971 testimony before the United States Senate, tells the story of the VVAW as it gained considerable influence during the protests on the U.S. home front and helped hastened the war’s end. The tome draws from organization archives and FBI surveillance files, revealing what happens when a country rejects those it sends to war.

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam

America’s involvement in Vietnam didn’t occur overnight; it was a slow, churning river that eventually gave way to the rapids. David Halberstam’s legendary book on the seemingly innocuous origins of American involvement meets the hype and then some.

Halberstam was uniquely positioned to write this book: He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize at 30 for his reporting in Vietnam for The New York Times and was one of the first to call it a quagmire. Considered one of the finest journalists in American history, the prolificity of his output is matched only by his variety of interests. He was also not above telling the stuffed shirts in Times hierarchy how he really felt, either.

This engrossing history offers a combination of frankness and intelligence that never feels too dense or suffocating. The war’s ugly end is foretold expertly and will answer all questions but one: Why couldn’t they give Halberstam two Pulitzers?

Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey by Gia-Bao Tran

The Vietnam War’s end was predicated on the elimination of a state: South Vietnam. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, refugees from Vietnam, as well as neighboring Laos and Cambodia, made a tortuously dangerous route to the United States, the country that swore it would never abandon them.

Illustrator Gia-Bao “GB” Tran’s debut turn as an author, Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey, follows the story of his family trying to make that country fulfill its promise. The book charts their struggles with trying to earn a living wage in that new land, all under the looming shadow of some tragic personal history. Vietnamerica, which was released in 2011 to wide acclaim and several awards, has been hailed both as “the Maus of the Vietnam War” and innovative as graphic novels go.

The Best Fiction Books About the Vietnam War

The Sorrow of War by Bảo Ninh

If the cliché is that “history is written by the winners,” then the Vietnam War must surely be an exception, at least in the United States. For many reasons, the communist perspective from North Vietnam is usually limited to either the point of view of a family from the North escaping communism or, more commonly, a historical perspective focused on military and political leaders. 

Any English-language translations of works from the perspective of North Vietnamese soldiers owe a debt to Bảo Ninh and his 1991 book, The Sorrow of War. Ninh, who fought for North Vietnam in the war, wrote this stream-of-consciousness exploration of loss and regret for a college course. Its evocative style caused such a stir that the Vietnamese government banned it for 15 years, though now it is rightly hailed as a masterpiece in both Vietnam and the United States.

Ninh was also featured prominently in Ken Burns’s 2017 Vietnam War series, as was American author Tim O’Brien, to whose work Ninh is often compared.

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

When you’re someone as prolific as Tim O’Brien, you’re bound to appear on this list more than once. O’Brien’s The Things They Carried quickly became a staple of middle- and high-school English classes after its 1990 publication and is widely regarded as one of the all-time best fiction books about the Vietnam War.

Like Ninh, O’Brien has little time for the “glories of war.” Instead, this classic looks at guilt, loss, bravery, and how often one can slip into another. All this is done in a way that remains accessible to readers who may not be much younger than O’Brien was when he shipped out at 23. The title of the book evokes the tension and exhaustion of fighting a war half a world away from home, and remains as powerful as ever.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Another seminal work of fiction on the Vietnam War is The Quiet American, which was popular almost a decade before America sent any troops over. The book was published in 1955 and is largely remembered for its long-viewed look at the potentially harmful impact of America’s early involvement in the civil war in Vietnam.

Needless to say, the reception of the tome was frosty in America, though it was positive in Graham’s native England. But as time passed and the American commitment in Vietnam grew, The Quiet American saw its reputation rightly corrected. The decision-making of Alden Pyle, a CIA agent and the book’s titular character, led to the conditions that essentially sent the protagonists of Tim O’Brien’s and Bảo Ninh’s books into a war.

The Quiet American has also been adapted to film twice: once in 1958 and again in 2002, with the latter starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser (and belongs in more conversations about Brendan Fraser, so do your part).

Novel Without a Name by Dương Thu Hương

If there is one upside to be found when you consider the low rate of English-language accounts of the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese perspective, it’s this: the few that have made it through are bound to be good.

That’s certainly the case with this family history by Vietnamese dissident Dương Thu Hương, who fought in the war and later became disillusioned by disparities between the victorious North and defeated South after reunification. Novel Without a Name follows Quan, a soldier from a northern village who sees youthful passion for the war give way to skepticism. The novel has been favorably compared to the classic All Quiet on the Western Front, which is high praise indeed.

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

Karl Marlantes wrote his debut novel, 2010’s Matterhorn, on and off over several decades. In that time, the Vietnam War veteran got married, had kids, and worked as a corporate advisor for various energy companies around the world. But Marlantes was also sorting through his memories of Vietnam, and this book was a way to purge and process. At 663 pages, it’s one of the longer books on this list and has been likened to The Naked and the Dead for its unabashed description of combat, as well as the quiet tedium of a soldier’s life.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Written by poet Ocean Vuong (pen name of Vương Quốc Vinh) and published in 2019, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous takes much of its plot from Ho Chi Minh City-born Vuong’s own upbringing as an Amerasian youth (his grandfather was a soldier from Michigan) in a postwar Vietnam that looks upon the mixed-race group with deep distrust.

The relocation of the main character’s family to the United States as a refugee brings with it new challenges, with the whole book told in a nonlinear narrative style. The novel, Vuong’s first, is a tale of those left in the lurch after the conflict, and how they had to forge a new path in life amid the destruction of old prewar certainties. It has garnered many plaudits since its release, including a longlisting for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction; it was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2020.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel The Sympathizer follows the half-French, half-Vietnamese narrator as the fall of Saigon looms, and also traces his efforts to adapt to the otherworldly existence of being a refugee in Los Angeles. 

With its mixture of mystery, comedy, and political derring-do, the novel quickly won fans after its 2016 release. It was optioned into an acclaimed 2024 HBO miniseries starring Hoa Xuande and Robert Downey Jr., while a sequel (The Committed) was released in 2021. On top of all that, the Central Highlands-born Nguyen won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, plus many additional honors.

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