Edward Miller (history, Dartmouth College) has written a very readable new book on events that led up to the war in Vietnam, focused on Ngo Dinh Diem. Forgotten by most US readers, Diem was the South Vietnamese leader originally considered the major US ally in the region. A few years later he was ousted in a coup supported by the US government. Miller offers his theory about what happened to Diem and why. He bases it on extensive archival research using materials from the French colonial presence, the American presence, Vietnamese records, and accounts by observers from other nations. In Miller's view, Diem was neither a US pawn nor a local strongman ousted for his refusal to be a US pawn. Instead, Diem had his own global vision for nation-building in Vietnam. The author rejects ideologically-driven broad-brush accounts of people and events and replaces them with nuanced accounts based on close primary research. In his view, the same factors that made Diem attractive to US intelligence and policy experts--decisiveness, determination, rugged individualism, grand vision, refusal to make coalitions with those who had other perspectives--led to both his abandonment by the US when he disagreed with their views, and to his own failure to govern a people with varied ideas about what kind of nation they wanted to be. The book is centered not on the war but on nation-building in modern Vietnamese history. It will appeal most to professional historians and scholars of political policy, and to serious amateurs in the same fields with an interest in Vietnam in this era. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)