{"product_id":"vietnam-an-epic-tragedy-1945-1975-9780062405678","title":"Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eThe Secret War.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh's warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners' victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings' readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the twenty-first century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHastings, Max:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003eSir Max Hastings chronicles Vietnam with the benefit of vivid personal memories: first of reporting in 1967-68 from the United States, where he encountered many of the war's decision-makers including President Lyndon Johnson, then of successive assignments in Indochina for newspapers and BBC TV: he rode a helicopter out of the US Saigon embassy compound during the 1975 final evacuation. He is the author of twenty-six books, most about conflict, and between 1986 and 2002 served as editor-in-chief of the \u003cem\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e, then editor of the \u003cem\u003eEvening Standard. \u003c\/em\u003eHe has won many prizes both for journalism and his books, of which the most recent are \u003cem\u003eAll Hell Let Loose\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eCatastrophe \u003c\/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003eThe Secret War\u003c\/em\u003e, best-sellers translated around the world. He has two grown-up children, Charlotte and Harry, and lives with his wife Penny in West Berkshire, where they garden enthusiastically. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50615590781202,"sku":"9780062405678","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_166faa4b-539e-4daa-83a9-ff022f69f45a.jpg?v=1732494988","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/vietnam-an-epic-tragedy-1945-1975-9780062405678","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}