Timothy Lomperis persuasively argues the ironic point that the lessons of American involvement in Vietnam are not to be found in any analysis of the war by itself. Rather, he proposes a comparison of the Vietnam experience with seven other cases of Western intervention in communist insurgencies during the Cold War era: China, Indochina, Greece, the Philippines, Malaya, Cambodia, and Laos.

Lomperis maintains that popular insurgencies are manifestations of crises in political legitimacy, which occur as a result of the societal stresses caused by modernization. Therefore, he argues,...

Timothy Lomperis knows the Vietnam War, both as a soldier and as a scholar. In the latter role he has published extensively, including The War Everyone Lost--and Won, hailed as one of the best books ever written on that conflict. Even though he served two tours "in country" during the war's most frustrating period-from the infamous Easter Invasion through the Paris Peace negotiations-this is the first time he has written about the war from such a personal perspective.

An intelligence officer at the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Lomperis and his comrades were tasked...