Three decades after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia, echoes from the Vietnam War still reverberate in 21st-century America. A recently published book edited by Dr. David Anderson, professor of history at CSUMB, offers new perspectives on the political, historical, military and social issues that defined the war and its effects on the U.S. and Vietnam. “The Columbia History of the Vietnam War” opens with an introduction by Dr. Anderson on the war’s major moments and enduring relevance.

In it he says, “The history of the American war in Vietnam is not a remote academic subject. It is, or it should be, a continuing and real part of policymaking and public discourse on the role of American power and ideals throughout the world.”

Dr. Anderson has published a number of books on the Vietnam War. He is a past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and is an Army veteran of Vietnam.

Publication of the book followed his participation in an international conference in Washington, D.C., in the fall. He was invited to participate in “The American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975” by the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the Department of State. He participated in a session on the U.S. war debate, “Ours to Reason Why: Intervention in Vietnam, Reaction in America.”