The Vietnam War: An Almanac John S. Bowman, general editor (World Almanac: $24.95; 512 pp.)

The dust jacket refers to this handy reference book as “a starting point” for anyone interested in the Vietnam conflict. It is more than that. Here in slightly more than 500 pages and 150 news photos of battles and casualties is a valuable book that will serve many general readers better than the polemical works that attempt to justify a particular point of view of the war.

It provides most of the essential information to enable the reader to reinforce or alter his or her own conclusions about the war. Its neat compartmentalization and a detailed index give the reader easy access to any particular event, issue or major personality involved.

One of the most telling entries is a one-page summary of the cost of the war in lives and treasure. It speaks volumes of the disaster that had virtually torn America apart.

There is a fine short introduction by former Vietnam correspondent Fox Butterworth who takes note of the many ironies of a conflict in which the Americans won virtually every battle but lost the war.

Slightly more than half of the book is taken up by a chronology that begins with a quick look at Vietnamese history and then, with greater detail, delves into the American involvement. The chronology ends on Nov. 11, 1984, with the terse notation: “A statue of three Vietnam War infantrymen is dedicated at the War Memorial on Veteran’s Day.”

The work also includes short chapters, each written by a specialist, on the various military services, both friendly and enemy, that fought in Vietnam. These are certain to please military buffs with their discussion of the effectiveness or shortcomings of the tactics and the various weapons involved.

The almanac ends with a series of biographical sketches of more than 60 of the major figures involved in Vietnam. Because of their brevity, the sketches are vulnerable to controversy. They try in all too few words to capsulize the views and actions of individuals embroiled in high complex, emotional and ever-shifting conditions.

In this section, the jacket blurb is accurate; the sketches are merely “a starting point.”