"No one can understand the complete tragedy of the American experience in Vietnam without reading this book. Nothing so underscores the ambivalence and confusion of the American commitment as does the composition of our fighting forces. The rich and the powerful may have supported the war initially, but they contributed little of themselves. That responsibility fell to the poor and the working class of America."--Senator George McGovern
"Reminds us of the disturbing truth that some 80 percent of the 2.5 million enlisted men who served in Vietnam--out of 27 million men who reached draft age during the war--came from working-class and impoverished backgrounds. . . . Deals especially well with the apparent paradox that the working-class soldiers' families back home mainly opposed the antiwar movement, and for that matter so with few exceptions did the soldiers themselves."--"New York Times Book Review"
" Appy's] treatment of the subject makes it clear to his readers--almost as clear as it became for the soldiers in Vietnam--that class remains the tragic dividing wall between Americans."--"Boston Globe"

Christian G. Appy's monumental oral history of the Vietnam War is the first work to probe the war's path through both the United States and Vietnam. These vivid testimonies of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict, from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975. Sometimes detached and reflective, often raw and emotional, they allow us to see and feel what this war meant to people literally on all sides?Americans and Vietnamese, generals and grunts, policymakers and protesters, guerrillas and CIA operatives, pilots and doctors, artists and journalists, and a variety of ordinary citizens whose lives were swept up in a cataclysm that killed three million people. By turns harrowing, inspiring, and revelatory, "Patriots" is not a chronicle of facts and figures but a vivid human history of the war.

In Vietnam, Professor, Christian G. Appy has created a staggering and monumental oral history of the type that is created only once in a generation. The vivid accounts of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975. The testimony in this book, sometimes detached and reflective, often raw and emotional, allows us to see and feel what this war meant to people on all sides - Americans and Vietnamese, generals and guerillas, policy makers and protesters, CIA operatives, pilots and doctors, artists and journalists, and a variety of ordinary citizens whose lives were swept up in a cataclysm that killed three million people. A remarkable, eye-opening and essential read for anyone with even a passing interest in one of the 20th century's defining conflicts.

The end of the Cold War has inspired a wave of exciting new scholarship about the central international struggle in the decades following World War II. Dissatisfied with traditional diplomatic and military interpretations, historians have begun to investigate the crucial role that political culture played in shaping global conflicts. Cold War Constructions contributes to this reappraisal by illuminating the political and cultural assumptions underlying U.S. policies from the end of World War II to the mid-1960s. How were Cold War ideas and events shaped by American culture? How were they explained and promoted at home and around the world? And how did they vary from one geographical context to another? These are among the questions addressed in this collection of original essays. Each contributor focuses on a specific site of Cold War contestation--Southeast Asia, India, Europe, Africa, Iran, Guatemala, and Cuba--and analyzes the impact of domestic political culture on that particular conflict. Cultural attitudes, practices, and values are examined through a range of topics and sources, from travel literature and Broadway musicals to philanthropic organizations and Time magazine. Together the essays shed new light on such major Cold War events as the Cuban Revolution, the CIA overthrow of governments in Iran and Guatemala, and the United States intervention in Vietnam. Contributors include Christian G. Appy, Mark Bradley, James T. Fisher, John Foran, Kevin Gaines, Van Gosse, Christina Klein, Jonathan Nashel, Andrew J. Rotter, Penny M. Von Eschen, and Wendy Wall.