On the success of his two bestselling books about World War II, James Bradley began to wonder what the real catalyst was for the Pacific War. What he discovered shocked him.
In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Taft, his daughter Alice, and a gaggle of congressmen on a mission to Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea with the intent of forging an agreement to divide up Asia. This clandestine pact lit the fuse that would-decades later-result in a number of devastating wars: WWII, the Korean War, and the communist revolution in China.
In 2005, James Bradley retraced that epic voyage and discovered the remarkable truth about America's vast imperial past. Full of fascinating characters brought brilliantly to life, "The Imperial Cruise" will powerfully revise the way we understand U.S. history.

On June 7, 1998 CNN broadcast Valley of Death, the story of a 1970 raid into Laos by U.S. Special Forces. According to the report, Operation Tailwind had used sarin nerve gas to kill U.S. soldiers who had defected to the North Vietnamese. After a firestorm of controversy, CNN retracted the report, ruining the career of rising star April Oliver and compromising the network's credibility. Called "the TV news story of the year" by TV Guide, CNN's Operation Tailwind fiasco was the biggest news scandal of the 1990s. Hearing about the story after its broadcast, Jerry Lembcke was struck by its resemblance to war legends and myths. His search for the origins of the tale, and an explanation for why top-level journalists would believe it, led him into the shocking world of political paranoia, where conspiracy theory, popular culture, religious fundamentalism, and the fantasies of war veterans cross paths. Approaching the story as a case study in why people believe what they do, Lembcke reversed the normal inquiry into how journalists shape what the rest of us know, to ask questions about the social forces that shape what journalists know. With a likeness to Herbert Gans' 1980 classic, Deciding What's News, Jerry Lembcke's CNN's Tailwind Tale is at once a study of American journalism that opens a window on America itself. Special link to the author's interview on Radio Nation discussing this new book - CNN's Tailwind Tale

With first-hand insight into the into the key role of the US Air Force's fighter-bomber from the Vietnam War through to Operation Desert Storm during the First Gulf War, this book is an unmissable account of some of the most dangerous and demanding missions in the two wars. The advent of the surface-to-air missile (SAM) in the early 1950s threatened the whole concept of aerial bombing from medium and high altitude. Countermeasures were developed during the Korean War, but with little initial success. It was only in the closing stages of the Vietnam War, with the F-4Cww Phantom II (Wild Weasel 4), that this equipment started to become successful enough to allow a substantial investment in converting 116 F-4E Phantom IIs into dedicated SEAD aircraft. This move introduced a new generation of anti-radar missiles which became invaluable in later operations including operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Northern Watch over Iraq. This volume features dynamic archival photography from crews who flew the jet, alongside mission accounts and technical details of the development and fielding of the F-4 Wild Weasel in its various iterations. Including specially commissioned artwork of 'sharkmouthed' Phantom IIs in Vietnam jungle camouflage and more modern USAF 'Ghost Gray', this book is the ultimate visual and technical guide to the F-4 Phantom II Wild Weasel Units in combat.

This is a study of media and cultural artifacts that constitute the remembrance of a tragic war as reflected in the stories of eight people who lived it. Using memoir, history, and criticism, "Crossing the Street in Hanoi" is based on scholarly research, teaching, and writing as well as extensive personal journals, interviews, and exclusive primary source material. Each chapter uses a human story to frame an exploration in media and cultural criticism. What weaves these different threads into a whole cloth are the stories of the Vietnam War and the long shadow it casts over American and Vietnamese cultures.

First published in 1915, Towards International Government considers the consequences of war for global diplomacy and the alliance system. Hobson argues that, to reduce armaments and the possibility of another world war, an organisational structure of international government must be put into place. An extension of the League of Nations, Hobson proposes that this council would need to hold legislative powers enabling it to impose economic sanctions and, if necessary, the ability to deploy an international force. This is a fascinating and exceptionally forward-thinking work, of great importance to economic and political historians of the twentieth century.

Few historians of the Vietnam War have covered the post-1975 era or engaged comprehensively with refugee politics, humanitarianism, and human rights as defining issues of the period. After Saigon's Fall is the first major work to uncover this history. Amanda C. Demmer offers a new account of the post-War normalization of US-Vietnam relations by centering three major transformations of the late twentieth century: the reassertion of the US Congress in American foreign policy; the Indochinese diaspora and changing domestic and international refugee norms; and the intertwining of humanitarianism and the human rights movement. By tracing these domestic, regional, and global phenomena, After Saigon's Fall captures the contingencies and contradictions inherent in US-Vietnamese normalization. Using previously untapped archives to recover a riveting narrative with both policymakers and nonstate advocates at its center, Demmer's book also reveals much about US politics and society in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

The story of an extraordinary campaign in the Vietnam War - fought in a 200-mile labyrinth of underground tunnels and chambers. The campaign in the tunnels of Cu Chi was fought with cunning and savagery between Viet Cong guerrillas and special teams of US infantrymen called 'Tunnel Rats'. The location: the 200-mile labyrinth of underground tunnels and secret chambers that the Viet Cong had dug around Saigon. The Tunnel Rats were GIs of legendary skill and courage. Armed only with knives and pistols, they fought hand-to-hand against a cruel and ingenious enemy inside the booby-trapped blackness of the tunnels. For the Viet Cong the tunnel network became their battlefield, their barracks, their arms factories and their hospitals, as the ground above was pounded to dust by American shells and bombs.

Between 1965 and 1973, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans participated in one of the most remarkable and significant people's movements in American history. Through marches, rallies, draft resistance, teach-ins, civil disobedience, and non-violent demonstrations at both the national and local levels, Americans vehemently protested the country's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Rethinking the American Anti-War Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, how it intersected with other social and political movements of the time, and its lasting effect on the country. The book is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the Anti-War movement of the twentieth century.

Beginning as a young boy, Jules takes you through the unique process of becoming a Naval Aviator, engages you into his experiences as a brand new pilot in a combat squadron and, finally becoming a flying warrior. Having survived two combat cruises aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk from 1966-1968, compiling 332 career carrier take offs and landings, being shot at daily by enemy fire while completing 200 combat missions over Vietnam, he clearly shares the views of the aviators who flew along with him on these missions while fighting this unpopular war. Jules was awarded the Nation's Distinguished Flying Cross, 21 Air Medals, and many other accolades. After reading this book the reader will have a new understanding and appreciation about the Warriors who protect not only their comrades in arms, but the defense of the nation as well.

In Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett delivers the definitive final chapter on America's greatest secret and our worst military disaster. Drawing on twenty years of research and access to scores of previously classified documents, Stinnett proves that Pearl Harbor was not an accident, a mere failure of American intelligence, or a brilliant Japanese military coup. By showing that ample warning of the attack was on FDR's desk and, furthermore, that a plan to push Japan into war was initiated at the highest levels of the U.S. government, he ends up profoundly altering our understanding of one of the most significant events in American history.

In The Sum of Our Dreams, Louis P. Masur offers a sweeping yet compact history of America from its beginnings to the current moment. For general readers seeking an accessible, single-volume account, one that challenges but does not overwhelm, and which distills and connects the major events and figures in the country's past in a single narrative, here is that book. Evoking Barack Obama's belief that America remains the "sum of its dreams," Masur locates the origin of those dreams-of freedom, equality, and opportunity-and traces their progress chronologically, illuminating the nation's struggle over time to articulate and fulfill their promise. Moving from the Colonial Era, to the Revolutionary Period, the Early Republic, and through the Civil War, Masur turns his attention to Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Age, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, Civil Rights, Vietnam, and Watergate, and then laying out clearly and concisely what underlies the divisiveness that has characterized American civic life over the last forty years-and now more than ever. Above all, however, Masur lets the story of American tell itself. Inspired by James Baldwin's observation that "American history is longer, larger, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it," he expands our notion of that history while identifying its individual threads. The Sum of Our Dreams will be the new go-to single volume for anyone wanting a foundational understanding of the nation's past, and its present.

A monumental work of research and analysis, this is a history of the Vietnam War in a single province of the Mekong Delta over the period 1930-1975. More precisely, it is a study of the Vietnamese dimension of the "Vietnam War, " focusing on the revolutionary movement that became popularly known as the "Viet Cong." There are several distinctive features to this study: (1) it provides an explanation for the paradox of why the revolutionary movement was so successful during the war, but unable to meet the challenges of postwar developments; (2) it challenges the dominant theme of contemporary political analysis which assumes that people are "rational" actors responding to events with careful calculations of self-interest; (3) it closely examines province-level documentation that casts light on a number of important historical controversies about the war. No other history of the Vietnam War has drawn on such a depth of documentation, especially firsthand accounts that allow the Vietnamese participants to spea directly to us.

Peter Clark's year in Vietnam began in July 1966, when he was shipped out with hundreds of other young recruits, as a replacement in the 1st Infantry Division. Clark was assigned to the Alpha Company. Clark gives a visceral, vivid and immediate account of life in the platoon, as he progresses from green recruit to seasoned soldier over the course of a year in the complexities of the Vietnamese conflict. Clark gradually learns the techniques developed by US troops to cope with the daily horrors they encountered, the technical skills needed to fight and survive, and how to deal with the awful reality of civilian casualties. Fighting aside, it rained almost every day and insect bites constantly plagued the soldiers as they moved through dense jungle, muddy rice paddy and sandy roads. From the food they ate (largely canned meatballs, beans and potatoes) to the inventive ways they managed to shower, every aspect of the platoon's lives is explored in this revealing book. The troops even managed to fit in some R&Rwhilst off-duty in the bars of Tokyo. Alpha One Sixteen follows Clark as he discovers how to cope with the vagaries of the enemy and the daily confusion the troops faced in distinguishing combatants from civilians. The Viet Cong were a largely unseen enemy who fought a guerrilla war, setting traps and landmines everywhere. Clark's vigilance develops as he gets used to 'living in mortal terror,' which a brush with death in a particularly terrifying fire fight does nothing to dispel. As he continues his journey, he chronicles those less fortunate; the heavy toll being taken all round him is powerfully described at the end of each chapter.

The unimagined community proposes a reexamination of the Vietnam War from a perspective that has been largely excluded from historical accounts of the conflict, that of the South Vietnamese. Challenging the conventional view that the war was a struggle between the Vietnamese people and US imperialism, the study presents a wide-ranging investigation of South Vietnamese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. Beginning with a genealogy of the concept of a Vietnamese "culture," as the latter emerged during the colonial period, the book concludes with a reflection on the rise of popular culture during the American intervention. Reexamining the war from the South Vietnamese perspective, The unimagined community pursues the provocative thesis that the conflict, in this early stage, was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two competing versions of anticolonial communism. -- .

Using archival photographs sourced directly from Vietnam, specially commissioned diagrams and combat accounts from veterans, István Toperczer reveals how the MiG-21 defended Vietnam between 1966 and 1968. One of the most successful communist jet fighters ever built, the MiG-21 "Fishbed" was involved in a series of deadly duels with American fighters over North Vietnam as the USAF and US Navy ramped up strike missions during Operation Rolling Thunder, culminating in the destruction of over 70 US aircraft for the loss of 35 "Fishbeds." Having honed their skills on the subsonic MiG-17, pilots of the Vietnam People's Air Force received their first examples of the legendary MiG-21 supersonic fighter in 1966. Soon thrown into combat over North Vietnam, the guided-missile-equipped MiG-21 proved a deadly opponent for the American crews striking at targets deep into communist territory. Although the communist pilots initially struggled to come to terms with the fighter’s air search radar and weapons systems, the ceaseless cycle of combat operations quickly honed their skills. The best fighter then available to the VPAF, more than 200 MiG-21s (of various sub-types) were supplied to the North Vietnamese. In this study, leading VPAF authority István Toperczer analyzes the tactics used by the MiG-21 pilots over the bitter fighting in North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder. The highspeed ‘hit and run’ attacks employed by the communist pilots proved to be very successful, with both R-3S air-to-air missiles and heavy-caliber cannon inflicting a rising toll on American jets. Using first-hand accounts from MiG-21 pilots, battlescene artwork, combat ribbon diagrams, and armament views, the author details the important role played by the "Fishbed" in the defense of North Vietnam.

The Vietnam War was arguably the most important event for America in the twentieth century. The US entered the conflict with doctrines modelled for the Cold War and a mission to wipe out Communism, but the reality of war in Vietnam confounded all expectations. This book chronicles the bloody guerrilla warfare that ensued.

The untold story of how America's secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA's Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public-and most of Congress-Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With "revelatory reporting" and "lucid prose" (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA's clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since-all the way to today's war on terrorism.

"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre." . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S. Thompson.

The first book to give equal weight to the Vietnamese and American sides of the Vietnam war.

Every war has its "bridge"--Old North Bridge at Concord, Burnside's Bridge at Antietam, the railway bridge over Burma's River Kwai, the bridge over Germany's Rhine River at Remagen, and the bridges over Korea's Toko Ri. In Vietnam it was the bridge at Thanh Hoa, called Dragon's Jaw. For many years hundreds of young US airmen flew sortie after sortie against North Vietnam's formidable and strategically important bridge, dodging a heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire, surface-to-air missiles and enemy fighters. Many American airmen were shot down, killed, or captured and taken to the infamous POW prisons in Hanoi. But after each air attack, when the smoke cleared and the debris settled, the bridge stubbornly remained standing. For the North Vietnamese it became a symbol of their invincibility; for US war planners an obsession; for US airmen a testament to American mettle and valor. Using after-action reports, official records, and interviews with surviving pilots, as well as previously untapped Vietnamese sources, Dragon's Jaw chronicles American efforts to destroy the bridge, strike by bloody strike, putting readers into the cockpits, under fire. The story of the Dragon's Jaw is a story rich in bravery, audacity, sometimes luck and sometimes tragedy. The "bridge" story of Vietnam is an epic tale of war against a determined foe.

A history of the Armenian massacres of the 1890s and the genocide of 1915 also traces America's effort to assist the Armenian people, citing the contributions of such figures as Julia Ward Howe, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Mark Twain, and Clara Barton.

U.S. Marine Sergeant Tim Fortner survived 14 months in Vietnam as a door gunner in a CH-46 helicopter. Completing 27 strike flight missions, he was awarded the Air Medal and Bronze Star for meritorious service in combat. Like many veterans, his real battle didn't begin until he returned home, where he struggled to adjust to the "new normal" of American life in 1969, still haunted by his experiences during the nation's most unpopular war. His memoir describes his military training, his unit's harrying missions inserting and extracting troops over landing zones under enemy fire, and his four-decade struggle with service-connected PTSD.