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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900
Joseph A. Fry's Letters from the Southern Home Front explores the
diversity of public opinion on the Vietnam War within the American
South. Fry examines correspondence sent by hundreds of individuals,
of differing ages, genders, racial backgrounds, political views,
and economic status, reflecting a broad swath of the southern
population. These letters, addressed to high-profile political
figures and influential newspapers, took up a myriad of war-related
issues. Their messages enhance our understanding of the South and
the United States as a whole as we continue to grapple with the
significance of this devastating and divisive conflict.
The Mysteries of Haditha is a war story unlike any other. This
riveting and hilarious memoir of M. C. Armstrong's journey into the
Iraq War as an embedded journalist pulls no punches and lifts the
veil on the lies we tell each other-and the ones we tell ourselves.
This is a story about both the strong women in Armstrong's life and
his road to true manhood. Armstrong's family was nearly ripped at
the seams as he struggled to secure his embed with Navy SEALs in
the Al Anbar Province in 2008. Armstrong's searingly honest
narrative about his relationship with his father, his fiance, and
his friend in the SEAL team takes the reader on a nosedive ride
from a historically black college in the American South straight
into Baghdad, the burn pits, and the desert beyond the mysterious
Haditha dam. Honest and vulnerable, tender but fearless, The
Mysteries of Haditha is an incredible coming-of-age story and a
unique glimpse into the world of the war on terror.
General William C. Westmoreland has long been derided for his
failed strategy of "attrition" in the Vietnam War. Historians have
argued that Westmoreland's strategy placed a premium on high "body
counts" through a "big unit war" that relied almost solely on
search and destroy missions. Many believe the U.S. Army failed in
Vietnam because of Westmoreland's misguided and narrow strategy In
a groundbreaking reassessment of American military strategy in
Vietnam, Gregory Daddis overturns conventional wisdom and shows how
Westmoreland did indeed develop a comprehensive campaign which
included counterinsurgency, civic action, and the importance of
gaining political support from the South Vietnamese population.
Exploring the realities of a large, yet not wholly unconventional
environment, Daddis reinterprets the complex political and military
battlefields of Vietnam. Without searching for blame, he analyzes
how American civil and military leaders developed strategy and how
Westmoreland attempted to implement a sweeping strategic vision.
Westmoreland's War is a landmark reinterpretation of one of
America's most divisive wars, outlining the multiple,
interconnected aspects of American military strategy in
Vietnam-combat operations, pacification, nation building, and the
training of the South Vietnamese armed forces. Daddis offers a
critical reassessment of one of the defining moments in American
history.
During the first half of 1969, Bravo Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th
Cavalry, 25th Infantry Division operated northwest of Saigon in the
vicinity of Go Dau Ha, fighting in 15 actions on the Cambodian
border, in the Boi Loi Woods, the Hobo Woods and Michelin Rubber
Plantation and on the outskirts of Tay Ninh City. In that time,
Bravo Troop saw 10 percent of its average field strength killed
while inflicting much heavier losses on the enemy. This memoir
vividly recounts those six months of intense armored cavalry combat
in Vietnam through the eyes of an artillery forward observer,
highlighting his fire direction techniques and the routines and
frustrations of searching for the enemy and chaos of finding him.
Efforts to understand the impact of the Vietnam War on America
began soon after it ended, and they continue to the present day. In
"After Vietnam" four distinguished scholars focus on different
elements of the war's legacy, while one of the major architects of
the conflict, former defense secretary Robert S. McNamara,
contributes a final chapter pondering foreign policy issues of the
twenty-first century.
In the book's opening chapter, Charles E. Neu explains how the
Vietnam War changed Americans' sense of themselves: challenging
widely-held national myths, the war brought frustration,
disillusionment, and a weakening of Americans' sense of their past
and vision for the future. Brian Balogh argues that Vietnam became
such a powerful metaphor for turmoil and decline that it obscured
other forces that brought about fundamental changes in government
and society. George C. Herring examines the postwar American
military, which became nearly obsessed with preventing "another
Vietnam." Robert K. Brigham explores the effects of the war on the
Vietnamese, as aging revolutionary leaders relied on appeals to
"revolutionary heroism" to justify the communist party's monopoly
on political power. Finally, Robert S. McNamara, aware of the
magnitude of his errors and burdened by the war's destructiveness,
draws lessons from his experience with the aim of preventing wars
in the future.
A The Spectator Book of the Year 2022 A New Statesman Book of the
Year 2022 'An illuminating and riveting read' - Jonathan Dimbleby
Jeremy Bowen, the International Editor of the BBC, has been
covering the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to
explain its complex past and its troubled present. In The Making of
the Modern Middle East - in part based on his acclaimed podcast,
'Our Man in the Middle East' - Bowen takes us on a journey across
the Middle East and through its history. He meets ordinary men and
women on the front line, their leaders, whether brutal or benign,
and he explores the power games that have so often wreaked
devastation on civilian populations as those leaders, whatever
their motives, jostle for political, religious and economic
control. With his deep understanding of the political, cultural and
religious differences between countries as diverse as Erdogan's
Turkey, Assad's Syria and Netanyahu's Israel and his long
experience of covering events in the region, Bowen offers readers a
gripping and invaluable guide to the modern Middle East, how it
came to be and what its future might hold.
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