Why did the USA become involved in Vietnam? What led US policy makers to become convinced that Vietnam posed a threat to American interests? In The Road to Vietnam, Pablo de Orellana traces the origins of the US-Vietnam War back to 1945-1948 and the diplomatic relations fostered in this period between the US, France and Vietnam, during the First Vietnam War that pitted imperial France against the anti-colonial Vietminh rebel alliance. With specific focus on the representation of the parties involved through the processes of diplomatic production, the book examines how the groundwork was laid for the US-Vietnam War of the 60's and 70's. Examining the France-Vietminh conflict through poststructuralist and postcolonial lenses, de Orellana reveals the processes by which the US and France built up the perception of Vietnam as a communist threat. Drawing on archival diplomatic texts, the representation of political identity between diplomatic actors is examined as a cause leading up to American involvement in the First Vietnam War, and will be sure to interest scholars in the fields of fields of diplomatic studies, international relations, diplomatic history and Cold War history.

'Gripping ... A terrific action narrative' Max Hastings 'Reads like a Tom Clancy thriller, yet every word is true ... This is modern warfare close-up and raw' Andrew Roberts Bestselling and Orwell Prize-winning author Toby Harnden tells the gripping and incredible story of the six-day battle that began the War in Afghanistan and how it set the scene for twenty years of conflict. The West is in shock. Al-Qaeda has struck the US on 9/11 and thousands are dead. Within weeks, UK Special Forces enter the fray in Afghanistan alongside the CIA's Team Alpha and US troops. Victory is swift, but fragile. Hundreds of jihadists surrender and two operatives from Team Alpha enter Qala-i Jangi - the 'Fort of War' - to interrogate them. The prisoners revolt, one CIA man falls, and the other is trapped inside the fort. Seven members of the SBS - elite British Special Forces - volunteer for the rescue force and race into danger and the unknown. The six-day battle that follows proves to be one of the bloodiest of the Afghanistan war as the SBS and their American comrades face an enemy determined to die in the mud citadel. Superbly researched, First Casualty is based on unprecedented access to the CIA, SBS, and US Special Forces. Orwell Prize-winning author Toby Harnden recounts the gripping story of that first battle in Afghanistan and how the haunting foretelling it contained - unreliable allies, ethnic rivalries, suicide attacks, and errant bombs - was ignored, fueling the twenty-year conflict to come.

As the Vietnam War was beginning to turn towards its bitter end, Le Quan fought under beloved general Tran Ba Di in the army of South Vietnam. An unlikely encounter thrust the two men together, and they developed a mutual respect in their home country during wartime. Forty years later, the two men reconnected in a wholly unlikely setting: a family road trip to Key West. Soldier On is written by Le Quan's daughter, who artfully crafts the road trip as a frame through which the stories of both men come to life. Le Quan and Tran Ba Di provide two different views of life in the South Vietnamese army, and they embody two different realities of the aftermath of defeat. Le Quan was able to smuggle his family out of Saigon among the so-called boat people, eventually receiving asylum in America and resettling in Texas. General Tran Ba Di, on the other hand, experienced political consequences: he spent seventeen years in a re-education camp before he was released to family in Florida. A proud daughter's perspective brings this intergenerational and intercontinental story to life, as Tran herself plumbs her remembrances to expand the legacy of the many Vietnamese who weathered conflict to forge new futures in America.