Vietnam: An Epic History of a Divisive War 1945-1975

Vietnam: An Epic History of a Divisive War 1945-1975
Max Hastings

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER‘A masterful performance’ Sunday Times‘Magnificent… One by one, the sacred canons of right and left are obliterated. The war is laid bare, with all its uncomfortable truths exposed’ The Times‘An altogether magnificent historical narrative.’ Tim O’BrienVietnam 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 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and less familiar battles 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 2 million people.Many 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, Huey pilots from Arkansas.No 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 21st 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.

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Copyright (#u736fbc1c-9c92-5aad-b53b-0259705d8530)

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018

Copyright © Max Hastings 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover photograph © AP Photo/Art Greenspoon

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Source ISBN: 9780008132989

Ebook Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008133009

Version: 2018-09-24

Dedication (#u736fbc1c-9c92-5aad-b53b-0259705d8530)

For my dear friend Rick Atkinson, who chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of American armies with an elegance, penetration and human sympathy that his fellow-historians strive to match.

Contents

Cover (#uaf1acaed-4fc3-5c53-99e0-15d50e143954)

Title Page (#uf1bfd775-efd2-5221-b833-7562e862e16d)

Copyright (#ue2ce0c93-bde1-541a-b9dd-43e3a160d723)

Dedication (#u69ebf961-661d-5ba3-96d5-2f91cebd06cf)

List of Illustrations (#u1f12a48d-fc8c-5915-b0c5-a8a5a9587afe)

List of Maps (#u009794c4-434c-5956-8a65-22037eb804f5)

Epigraph (#ucac2a2bd-e626-52e3-b548-682b7c0a9c61)

Introduction (#u92968c77-44e9-5b2f-9771-eb3299bea7a3)

Note on Styles Adopted in the Text (#u5848c25b-fb03-5c13-b52f-a03d8b03d5d2)

Glossary (#u1a5127db-b51c-5c3f-945c-de584fc0dee0)

1 Beauty and Many Beasts (#u0189ce33-02e6-51a2-9fea-dc6c02449c65)

1 CLINGING TO AN EMPIRE

2 THE VIETMINH MARCH (#ulink_d6e6285a-5124-5282-871b-841c93e22f23)

2 The ‘Dirty War’ (#u0456b439-d24f-5d8f-a5a2-b6962fe93aac)

1 STEAMROLLER TYPES

2 WASHINGTON PICKS UP THE TAB (#ulink_a75465a7-f6db-56da-9d04-acbab5d991ac)

3 PEASANTS (#ulink_e8eefe6f-a521-58cd-803b-2b41d9046e5d)

3 The Fortress That Never Was (#uda11d29d-a247-5ea5-b407-950ffbe720b3)

1 WAITING FOR GIAP

2 DISASTER BECKONS (#ulink_a895d8d7-8e2e-5512-9eb0-8be5995b7067)

4 Bloody Footprints (#u03bd0b1f-24df-51a0-93c8-6dccea41d627)

1 QUIT – OR BOMB?

2 ‘A TRIUMPH OF THE WILL’ (#ulink_9d718eae-48fe-5720-b10d-5f810d2359ac)

3 GENEVA (#ulink_6f9c0f0b-803d-5817-8881-9a7f853f6384)

5 The Twin Tyrannies (#ubb490595-fe15-5ae6-97c9-1d13a71394de)

1 ‘A REGIME OF TERROR’

2 ‘THE ONLY BOY WE GOT’ (#ulink_955a7ca0-df83-5b63-97be-8078acf308d9)

3 BOOM TIME (#ulink_e6b366b4-1db8-5fdf-86cf-e6823384ea3e)

4 A RECALL TO ARMS (#ulink_d49b9847-8536-5213-9471-f9b4552c911a)