by Fred Branfman (2013)
During the Vietnam War the United States government waged a massive, secret air war in neighboring Laos. Two million tons of bombs were dropped on one million people. Fred Branfman, an educational advisor living in Laos at the time, interviewed over 1,000 Laotian survivors. Shocked by what he heard and saw, he urged them to record their experiences in essays, poems, and pictures. Voices from the Plain of Jars was the result of that effort. When first published in 1972, this book was instrumental in exposing the bombing. In this expanded edition, Branfman follows the story forward in time, describing the hardships that Laotians faced after the war when they returned to find their farm fields littered with cluster munitions—explosives that continue to maim and kill today.
Herbert Y. Schandler
This book examines the events that led up to the day--March 31, 1968--when Lyndon Johnson dramatically renounced any attempt to be reelected president of the United States. It offers one of the best descriptions of U.S. policy surrounding the Tet offensive of that fateful March--a historic turning point in the war in Vietnam that led directly to the end of American military intervention.
William S. Turley
Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition, this classic history of the Vietnam War as seen by all sides takes into account the wealth of research and writing on the war since the book's original publication over two decades ago. Leading scholar.
David E. Murphy
Murphy asks why the Soviet Union was so unprepared for the German attack in 1941. The highly efficient Soviet intelligence services warned Stalin several times about German preparations, but they were ignored. What led Stalin to make such an enormous blunder?
Andrew L. Johns
"In Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War, Andrew L. Johns examines the relationship between foreign policy and domestic politics during America's longest war, assessing the influence of the Republican Party - including the congressional leadership, state and local politicians, grassroots organizations, and the Nixon administration - on the escalation, evolution, and resolution of the conflict. This groundbreaking work also sheds new light on the institutional tensions that existed between Congress and the president as they struggled to formulate and implement U.S. foreign policy." "In clear, incisive prose based on virtually unprecedented research in more than eighty congressional and presidential archives, Vietnam's Second Front covers the broad range of the Republican Party's impact on the Vietnam War, offers a compelling reassessment of responsibility for the conflict, and challenges assumptions about the roles of Congress and the president in U.S. foreign relations." --Book Jacket.