Everyman in Vietnam


Book Description

"Everyman in Vietnam: A Soldier's Journey into the Quagmire by Michael Adas and Joseph Gilch interweaves a macro perspective of American foreign policy during the war, with the individual-level perspective of one of the many soldiers who lived and died in the "quagmire." This unique perspective is made possible through the personal letters of Private James "Jimmy" Gilch, the late uncle of co-author, Joseph Gilch. Throughout his time on the ground in Vietnam, Jimmy sent dozens of letters back to his family in New Jersey, which detailed everything from the brutal, callous nature of basic training to the daily life of a GI in the jungles of Vietnam. Fascinated by these letters from an early age, Joseph Gilch poured over the nearly 80 letters ravenously. A graduate student at Rutgers University, Joseph has been working with Dr. Michael Adas to situate the story of Private Jimmy Gilch into the broader narrative of the United States' involvement in Vietnam. What comes out of this perspective is a truly remarkable and extraordinary picture of one of America's defining wars through the eyes of one of its many soldiers in a generation forever marked by the conflict."--Provided by publisher.




Until the Last Man Comes Home


Book Description

Reveals how wartime loss in the Vietnam War transformed U.S. politics, arguing that the effort to recover lost warriors was as much a means to establish responsibility for their loss as it was a search for answers about their fate.




Dispatches


Book Description

"The best book to have been written about the Vietnam War" (The New York Times Book Review); an instant classic straight from the front lines. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.




The End of the Line


Book Description

It was the most spectacular battle of the entire war. For 6,000 trapped marines, it was a nightmare; for President Lyndon Johnson, an obsession. For General Westmoreland, it was to be the final vindication of technological weaponry. In a compelling narrative, Robert Pisor sets forth the history, the politics, the strategies, and, above all, the desperate reality of the battle that became the turning point of the United States's involvement in Vietnam.




A Life in a Year


Book Description

This provocative in-depth book focuses on the experiences of the infantry soldier in Vietnam. More than 60 Army and Marine Corps infantrymen speak of their experiences during their year-long tours of duty.




Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars


Book Description

Making sense of the wars for Vietnam has had a long history. The question "why Vietnam?" dominated American and Vietnamese political life for much of the length of the wars and has continued to be asked in the decades since they ended. This volume brings together the work of eleven scholars to examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that have marked the contested terrain of Vietnam War scholarship. Editors Marilyn Young and Mark Bradley's superb group of renowned contributors spans the generations--including those who were active during wartime, along with scholars conducting research in Vietnamese sources and uncovering new sources in the United States, former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern and Western Europe. Ranging in format from top-down reconsiderations of critical decision-making moments in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon, to microhistories of the war that explore its meanings from the bottom up, these essays comprise the most up-to-date collection of scholarship on the controversial historiography of the Vietnam Wars.




Sunday Money


Book Description

NASCAR racing, once considered no more than a regional circuit of moonshiners pounding around low-country dirt tracks in a cloud of red dust and cliché, has somehow become America's fastest-growing spectator sport. With 75 million ardent fans, it is a sports entertainment empire built at the very crossroads of pop culture, corporate commerce, and American mythology -- a platinum-plated, V-8 hero machine. Smart, funny, and profane, Sunday Money is the kaleidoscopic account of a season on the NASCAR circuit. Driving 48,000 miles in a tiny motor home, Jeff MacGregor and his wife tracked the lives of superstar drivers like Junior Earnhardt and Tony Stewart, their crews, and their fans across the grinding reach of a 40-week season. More than just a behind-the-scenes chronicle of America's loudest pastime, Sunday Money is the story of a hundred stories, of red states and blue, of splendid Rebels and Yankee hotshoes. It is a brilliant snapshot of American culture -- of race, religion, class, sex, money, and fame -- taken from the window of a moving car.




Vietnam


Book Description

Zinn's compelling case against the Vietnam War, now with a new introduction. Of the many books that challenged the Vietnam War, Howard Zinn's stands out as one of the best--and most influential. It helped sparked national debate on the war. It includes a powerful speech written by Zinn that President Johnson should have given to lay out the case for ending the war.




Achilles in Vietnam


Book Description

An original and groundbreaking examination of the psychological devastation of war through the lens of Homer’s Iliad in this “compassionate book [that] deserves a place in the lasting literature of the Vietnam War” (The New York Times). In this moving and dazzlingly creative book, Dr. Jonathan Shay examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. A classic of war literature that has as much relevance as ever in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Achilles in Vietnam is a “transcendent literary adventure” (The New York Times) and “clearly one of the most original and most important scholarly works to have emerged from the Vietnam War” (Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried). As a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, Shay encountered devastating stories of unhealed PTSD and uncovered the painful paradox—that fighting for one’s country can render one unfit to be a citizen. With a sensitive and compassionate examination of the battles many Vietnam veterans continue to fight, Shay offers readers a greater understanding of PTSD and how to alleviate the potential suffering of soldiers. Although the Iliad was written twenty-seven centuries ago, Shay shows how it has much to teach about combat trauma, as do the more recent, compelling voices and experiences of Vietnam vets. A groundbreaking and provocative monograph, Achilles in Vietnam takes readers on a literary journey that demonstrates how we can learn how war damages the mind and spirit, and work to change those things in our culture that so that we don’t continue repeating the same mistakes.




Poisoned Jungle


Book Description

"The napalmed children peered at him, uncomprehending, not understanding what happened, and asked him to fix their burns, alleviate their pain. He tried to explain- such a terrible mistake. No words came out of his mouth."  Poisoned Jungle speaks to the long psychological tentacles war has on the lives it touches, and the difficulty of breaking free of them. Realizing changes have occurred deep within, Vietnam War medic Andy Parks must reconcile his new reality to establish a life worth living-not an easy task. How will Andy Parks ever dispel the images he brought home with him? He can't live with them-or outrun them. Even in sleep he finds no rest. In a powerful human saga, Andy teeters on the chasm of survivor's guilt, desperate to find equilibrium in his life. Deep down, he wants to live but doesn't know how. Poisoned Jungle is an intimate glimpse into one veteran's struggle for meaning after experiencing the despair of war.