Research Guides: HIST 3361: The U.S. and the Vietnam War: Find Books

Librarian

Contact:

936-294-1520
kclaunch@shsu.edu
Library (NGL) Room 223G

Purpose

This guide is intended to help you begin researching topics related to U.S. participation in the Vietnam War.

This guide is not comprehensive; it does not list all of the resources on this topic or in related disciplines owned by the Library or available on the Internet. This guide serves merely as a starting point for research.

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Other Reference Books

The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A political, social, and military history
Call Number: REF DS557.7 .E53 2011, volumes 1-4 (2nd floor)
Includes many photographs and illustrations. Contains more than 200 primary sources in a separate documents volume, with full introductions for each. Presents an extensive chronology of historic events and a glossary of terms. Provides cross-references and bibliographies that facilitate further research.
Vietnam: A Visual Encyclopedia
Call Number: DS557.7 .G88 2002 (4th floor)
Visual encyclopedia of over 500 extraordinary photos and alphabetized entries. Special feature: a blow-by-blow chronology chart of all major military and political events. Photos range from documenting of personnel, tanks, planes, and ships displaying their special insignias to graphic, award-winning scenes of horrific agonies suffered by combatants and innocents alike.
Historical Dictionary of the War in Vietnam
Call Number: REF DS557.7 .F735 2011 (2nd floor)
Emphasizes the international nature of the war, as well as provides a greater understanding of the long scope of the conflict. The major events associated with the war will serve as the foundation of the book while additional entries will explore the military, diplomatic, political, social, and cultural events that made the war unique. Chronology, introductory essay, extensive bibliography, and over 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries.
Words of the Vietnam War: The slang, jargon, abbreviations, acronyms, nomenclature, nicknames, pseudonyms, slogans, specs, euphemisms, double-talk, chants, and names and places of the era of United States involvement in Vietnam
Call Number: PE3727 .S7 C57 1990 (4th floor)
Cu Chi, (body bag), hose (kill), Mike-Juliet (marijuana), pogey bait, DO-28, C-2A, L Zed (Aussie for landing zone), rat-turds (oak leaf clusters): these and the 10,000 others in this dictionary are the words of the Vietnam era. The period covered is primarily 1963-1975, but there are terms included from as early as 1945 and as late as 1987.
Vietnam War Almanac
Call Number: Read Online
Contains a detailed, day-by-day chronology of the events and people involved in the Vietnam War and features an A-to-Z biographical dictionary of the key figures involved in the conflict, along with a comprehensive listing of vital statistics in the appendix.

FIND MORE ONLINE:

Gale Ebooks (*formerly* Gale Virtual Reference Library - GVRL) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Collection of ebooks (primarily reference) in almost all subjects, which are searchable together or individually. For a list of titles currently available, click on "Title List" at top right.

Browse the Collection

An excellent way to discover additional resources is to browse for books in relevant call number ranges.

Most works focused on the Vietnam War will be shelved in these areas:

DS556 - DS559.93 Vietnam. Annam

DS557 - DS559.9 Vietnamese Conflict

DS560 - DS560.72 Democratic Republic (North Vietnam), 1945

Additional works on the U.S. during the era of the Vietnam War might be shelved in:

E835 - E837.7 Eisenhower's administrations, 1953-1961

E841 - E843 Kennedy's administration, 1961-November 22, 1963

E846 - E851 Johnson's administrations, November 22, 1963-1969

E855 - E861 Nixon's administrations, 1969-August 9, 1974

To discover the call number ranges for broader, narrower, or different subjects, consult the Library of Congress Classification Outline.

Subject Headings

Subject headings allow you to find books according to broader and narrower topics.

Below are sample subjects. To browse for different, broader, or narrower subjects, go to the library catalog and click "Exact Search." Enter a term and click "subject."

You can start browsing for a broad subject like Education, then look for more specific subjects, such as Education England History 18th century.

Once you know some subject headings, you can also just use them as keywords during an advanced search, using the subject row.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Aerial operations (broken down further into ...American, Vietnamese, etc.)
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Atrocities
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Biography
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Campaigns
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Causes
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Diplomatic history
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Influence
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Missing in action
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Motion pictures and the war
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Naval operations (broken down further into ...American, Vietnamese, etc.)
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Peace
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Personal narratives (broken down further into ...American, Vietnamese, etc.)
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Pictorial works
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Prisoners and prisons
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Protest movements
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Public opinion
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Regimental histories
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 United States
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans

HIST 3361: The U.S. and the Vietnam War

Librarian

Purpose

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Other Reference Books

Browse the Collection

Subject Headings

Search the Library Catalog