Vietnam

An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975

By: Max Hastings

Narrated by: Max Hastings, Peter Noble

An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War.

Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh’s warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.

Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners’ victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas.

No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the twenty-first century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.

The ultimate history of Vietnam 1945-75.

Intensely interesting, packed with macro details on policy and micro details on the experiences of natives and foreigners. The most well balanced even handed treatment of Vietnam I have yet found.

thank you, Sir Max, well done.

I'm here because of hardcore history with Dan Carlin. caught the interview with Sir Max Hastings and became thoroughly interested.

Enlightening and riveting.

I feel like I knew a fair amount about this conflict before consuming this book. The French Colonialism, the U.S. Escalation, Tet, Linebacker I, Linebacker II, etc. This book offered fresh perspective and took the narrative to a depth that I had not previously experienced. The narrative is sprinkled with human stories that pull you in and give context to the history that grand narrative approaches often lack.

I typically reserve my audio materials for my commute. This is one of the rare books that has bled into my leisure time. I had a hard time putting it down. Every American with even a modest interest in the Vietnam conflict should consume this book.

Wow

Max Hasting made sense out of a complex of dilemmas and mysteries Fogging up my understanding of the Viet Nam War(s). This book ties together the War experience of soldiers and politicians as well as peasants on both sides. But Hastings gift to me was a deeper sense of the misuse of power and horrific consequences stemming from self deluded and/or cynical Gestalts which Invest in the very few manipulating whole societies into misguided action

A must for the History of The Vietnam war

Filled with so many sad and horrible stories yet understanding that this war was a major mistake on so many levels.