The doomed American intervention in Indochina divided the American public and made many mistrustful of American foreign policy. It also seriously damaged the reputation and fighting ability of the U.S military. Since Vietnam, policy makers have had to consider the reluctance of the American public to use the military as a tool of foreign policy. Although President George H. W. Bush claimed in 1991 that victory in the Persian Gulf War had finally buried "the spectre of Vietnam”, Robert D. Schulzinger (University of Colorado) argues in A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War that the “Vietnam Syndrome” is still alive and well.

Debate continues about the lessons of the Vietnam War. “Doves” argue that the Vietnam debacle demonstrated that there are limits to American power and that the United States should not act as “world policeman”; “Hawks”, however, contend that the U.S. could have won the war had military efforts not been undermined by weak politicians and the anti-war movement. This dispute is at the heart of Schulzinger’s work.

Using a wide variety of sources, this well-researched book looks at the aftermath of the war, its effects on policy decisions, its impact on veterans, and  -  in its most compelling and interesting section  -  the war’s consequences for the tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees who attempted to build a new life in the United States. Schulzinger also examines how the war, which he regards as “a national trauma”, has been remembered, in literature, film, and public history.

Almost one third of the book is devoted to diplomatic attempts to normalise relations between Vietnam and the United States - efforts hampered by the emotive POW/MIA issue, which was used by successive U.S. administrations to counter Vietnamese demands for payment of the reparations promised by President Nixon. Schulzinger argues “it was almost certainly false that Americans were held captive in Southesast Asia after the war.” While he offers a balanced account of American and Vietnamese diplomatic efforts, he is critical of the “Congressional Rambo faction” who exploited the families of American servicemen lost during the war, and who used the incredible popularity of movies such as Missing in Action (1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) to push for a more aggressive foreign policy stance.

Schulzinger’s chapter on American fiction writing and “Hollywood’s Vietnam” is necessarily limited in scope, given the abundance of literary and cinematic treatments of the war. As such, this chapter is mostly an overview of film and literature, and therefore lacks the insightful analysis of other sections of the book. Notable omissions, however, are M*A*S*H (1970) in the film section and Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War (1974) in the literature section. The omission of the former is odd, as in his discussion of American film Schulzinger sees fit to include television series such as Tour of Duty and Magnum PI. Schulzinger also chooses to discuss two Vietnamese novels, although his focus throughout is solely on the effects of the war on the United States. A wider discussion about the impact of the war on Vietnam would be very welcome, but Schulzinger is selective as to what is included and omitted, and his choices are not always logical or explained.

Schulzinger’s discussion of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial lasts only fifteen pages but he adequately narrates the history of the memorial and the controversies surrounding it. Shulzinger points out, for example, that Tom Carhart - who infamously called Maya Linn’s design a “black gash of shame” - had himself submitted an unsuccessful entry to the design competition, which perhaps indicates that base human frailties played a part in the controversy. Such insightful analysis leaves the reader wanting more, which is both an advantage and disadvantage when measuring the book’s worth and effectiveness.

As the Vietnam War has been the subject of extensive scholarly and public debate, there is consequently nothing new in A Time for Peace. It is, nevertheless, a valuable addition to the historiography of the Vietnam War. Written in an accessible manner, and neatly organised under clear chapter titles, A Time for Peace will prove useful for students and popular also with a wider audience.