Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides
by Christian G. Appy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Christian G. AppyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-28
ISBN: 0142004499
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides
Book Review: Relevant
Summary: 5 Stars
Christian G. Appy's "Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides" is such a dense work of history and witness that it takes a certain amount of concentration and simple fortitude for the average reader to get through it. And yet I continued to plug away, chapter by chapter or, some days, testimonial by testimonial. The content more than makes up for the effort put in, though. As the title claims, this IS "Vietnam... from all sides." A reader could know little to nothing about how and why the U.S. had anything to do with Vietnam and come away from Appy's book with quite a base of knowledge on the subject. His in-depth coverage of the Vietnam War of the 1960s begins where it should--the Vietnamese fight to gain independence from the French in the 1950s. It follows all the way through to the U.S. withdrawal from the country in 1975 and the "Legacies" left behind. It also discusses how Communism, religion, economics, even egos, contributed to the flash points that held this particular war in place.
Appy supports this backbone of history running through "Patriots" with the personal accounts of those the war touched. These witnesses range from common Vietnamese on either side of the 17th parallel to military personnel and politicians of those nations involved, to top American policy makers who kept the U.S. engaged against major public protest at home. It's a bit alarming, watching current news coverage of the Iraq War while reading about so much of the same from 40+ years ago, right down to what many believe is the deceptive tactics used by both U.S. governments to get involved in both foreign wars.
What I find most important about Christian Appy's "Patriots" are the lessons--both those that have been learned in the ensuing years, and those still waiting for our comprehension to catch up. While this IS a densely packed book on intense subject matter about a dark period in our collective history, those who are interested in learning from our country's past mistakes (on a grand scale) shouldn't shy away from taking this book on.
Summary of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides
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.
Christian Appy?s Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides is an oral history that serves as a "final public record" from many who have struggled publicly with the war for 20 or 30 years. The book is also a monumental effort to capture voices long unheard and ensure that the words are not lost to a new generation.
He includes statements from significant political and military figures from both sides of the conflict, including William Westmoreland, Alexander Haig, Nikita Kruschev's son Sergei, and Vice President Nguyen Thi Bihn. But he tempers these with the voices of a World Airways stewardess who accompanied troops out of the war zone, of the widow of the immolated Norman Morrison, and of numerous Vietnamese and American non-combatants whose lives were torn by the conflagration. These tales, and the contributions from poets, writers, and activists transform the book into a epic dialogue. Indeed, Appy says that he chose the title Patriots not out of a presumed understanding of how that word should be defined, but rather because it served as a locus for so many of the inner struggles of his interviewees: "In what ways might patriotism be a force for good or inspire noble sacrifice, and when does it become a club for stifling dissent and a rallying cry for unjustifiable destruction."
Patriots is a book that will reawaken memories--horrific and jubilant--for those who lived through the troubled 1960s and 1970s; and for those just coming to understand the war, it will make vivid the trials of a different time and place. This is a lasting, powerful book that's essential reading for students of the Vietnam conflict. --Patrick O?Kelley
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