From the award-winning historian and filmmakers of The Civil War,
Baseball, The War, The Roosevelts, and others: a vivid, uniquely
powerful history of the conflict that tore America apart--the companion
volume to the major, multipart PBS film to be aired in September 2017.
More than forty years after it ended, the Vietnam War continues to haunt
our country. We still argue over why we were there, whether we could
have won, and who was right and wrong in their response to the conflict.
When the war divided the country, it created deep political fault lines
that continue to divide us today. Now, continuing in the tradition of
their critically acclaimed collaborations, the authors draw on dozens
and dozens of interviews in America and Vietnam to give us the
perspectives of people involved at all levels of the war: U.S. and
Vietnamese soldiers and their families, high-level officials in America
and Vietnam, antiwar protestors, POWs, and many more. The book plunges
us into the chaos and intensity of combat, even as it explains the
rationale that got us into Vietnam and kept us there for so many years.
Rather than taking sides, the book seeks to understand why the war
happened the way it did, and to clarify its complicated legacy.
Beautifully written and richly illustrated, this is a tour de force that
is certain to launch a new national conversation.
