“History is written by the victors” has been the wisdom of the ages, restated jocularly but truthfully by Winston Churchill about his story of the Second World War. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's “The Vietnam War” fulfills this dictum once again, but with a unique twist. As Americans, they are among the losers, but their documentary exalts the winners—Communist North Vietnam. At the same time, they themselves are on the winning side in the domestic American contest between the anti-Vietnam War movement and those who saw the war as necessary in the larger Cold War struggle.