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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900
The Viet Cong have long remained a mystery even to those who fought
against them during America's longest and most divisive war. They
have been given many acronyms and slang names by the American
fighting men; included among them are V.C., Charlie and other less
complimentary terms. They have been portrayed in many guises by the
American press and popular Hollywood films. None, however, have
really addressed the Viet Cong in human terms. This work will strip
away the myth and mystery which surrounds the Viet Cong and,
through the medium of their own candid photography, present them in
human terms. They were everything we were a resourceful, cunning,
adaptable, and most of all, human. As did our own American
soldiers, they endured life in some of the harshest, most
inhospitable terrain on earth. In doing so, they exhibited the will
to sacrifice and be sacrificed for the collective goal of
unification. Little did they know that we were serving the hidden
agenda of the Politburo in Hanoi. In the end, they, like many of
our soldiers, were betrayed and abandoned. This book portrays the
Viet Cong as seen through their own photography. A cultural
obsession, photographs were taken wherever and whenever possible.
On many occasions, Allied forces were able to capture such photos.
It is from such sources that these photographs are made available,
most for the first time ever, to the general public.
American discussions of the Vietnam War tend to gloss over the
period from 1972 to the final North Vietnamese offensive in 1975.
But on the battlefields, these were brutal times for America's
South Vietnamese allies combined with a period of intense
diplomatic negotiations conducted under the increasing reality that
America had abandoned them. In Peace and Prisoners of War, written
in "real-time" as events occurred, Phan Nhat Nam provides a unique
window into the harsh combat that followed America's withdrawal and
the hopelessness of South Vietnam's attempt to stave off an
eventual communist victory. Few others could have written this
book. Phan Nhat Nam saw the war for years as a combat soldier in
one of South Vietnam's most respected airborne divisions, then as
the country's most respected war reporter, and for fourteen years
after the war as a prisoner in Hanoi's infamous "re-education"
camps, including eight years in solitary confinement. In the war's
aftermath anonymity became his fate both inside Vietnam and here in
America. But now one of his important works is available, enhanced
by an introduction by Senator James Webb, one of the most decorated
Marines in the Vietnam War. Webb describes this revealing work as
"an unvarnished observation frozen in time, devoid of spin or false
retrospective wisdom." Phan's reporting makes clear the sense of
doom that foretold the tragic events to come, on the battlefields
and in the frustration of negotiating with an implacable enemy
while abandoned by its foremost ally. Readers will find this book
both enlightening and disturbing, its observations until now
overlooked in most histories of the Vietnam War.
Less than 1% of our nation will ever serve in our armed forces,
leaving many to wonder what life is really like for military
families. He answers the call of duty in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the
Pacific; she keeps the home fires burning. Worlds apart, and in the
face of indescribable grief, their relationship is pushed to the
limits. 15 Years of War: How the Longest War in U.S. History
Affected a Military Family in Love, Loss, and the Cost Of Service
provides a unique he said/she said perspective on coping with war
in modern-day America. It reveals a true account of how a dedicated
Marine and his equally committed spouse faced unfathomable
challenges and achieved triumph, from the days just before 9/11
through 15 years of training workups, deployments, and other
separations. This story of faith, love, and resilience offers
insight into how a decade and a half of war has redefined what it
means to be a military family.
On The Frontlines of the Television War is the story of Yasutsune
"Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnam-beginning when he arrived
in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job
or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of
Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last
flights out. His memoir has all the exciting tales of peril,
hardship, and close calls as the best of battle memoirs but it is
primarily a story of very real and yet remarkable people: the
soldiers who fought, bled, and died, and the reporters and
photographers who went right to the frontlines to record their
stories and memorialize their sacrifice. The great books about
Vietnam journalism have been about print reporters, still
photographers, and television correspondents but if this was truly
the first "television war," then it is time to hear the story of
the cameramen who shot the pictures and the reporters who wrote the
stories that the average American witnessed daily in their living
rooms. An award-winning sensation when it was released in Japan in
2008, this book been completely re-created for an international
audience. In 2008, the Japanese edition was published by Kodansha
in two hardback volumes and titled "I Wanted to Be Capa." It won
the 2009 Oya Soichi Nonfiction Award-a prize usually reserved for
much younger writers-and Kodansha almost doubled their initial
print run to meet the demand. In that period, he was interviewed
extensively, a documentary was filmed in which he returned to the
people and places of his wartime experience, and a dramatization of
his book was written and presented on NHK Radio. A Kodansha
paperback was published in 2010 with an initial printing of 17,000
copies and continues to sell at a respectable pace. "Tony Hirashiki
is an essential piece of the foundation on which ABC was built.
From the day he approached the Bureau Chief in Saigon with a note
pinned to his shirt saying he could shoot pictures to the anxious
afternoon of 9/11 when we lost him in the collapse of the Twin
Towers (and he emerged covered in dust clutching his precious beta
tapes,) Tony reported the news with his camera and in doing so, he
brought the truth about the important events of our day to millions
of Americans." David Westin, Former President of ABC News
Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for
Non-Fiction 'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great
tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard 'In the
finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times
'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial
Times From the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars,
this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs
of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock
of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden
and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with
Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the
Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions, old contacts, favours
and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion
was quick and efficient, but Bin Laden's successful escape,
together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a
catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a
tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire
which lasted many years. At the heart of the problem lay
'Directorate S', a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which
had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider
competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and
which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving.
Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of
just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many
lives lost.
Warfare's evolution, especially since 2001, has irrevocably changed
the meaning of war. In the twentieth century-humankind's
bloodiest-231 million people died in armed conflicts. Battlefield
deaths since then have been steadily declining, despite the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and by 2012 less than 1 person in a million
dies in war every year. This drastic change has led some academics
to label our era one of peace, recalling the erroneously named
"Hundred Years' Peace" or "Pax Britannica" of the nineteenth
century, which nonetheless saw many violent conflicts. But war
hasn't gone extinct. It has merely evolved. In Shadow Wars,
journalist David Axe tells the story of the new war era-one of
insurgents and counterinsurgents, terrorists and their hunters,
pirates, mercenaries, smugglers, and slavers wreaking havoc on
regions where conditions are brutal, people are poor, governments
are weak, and the world rarely pays attention. Axe shows us what
war has become in our era of peace. The mainstream media,
meanwhile, ignores it. This book profoundly challenges
readers'conceptions of war and peace in the twenty-first century.
The follow-up to the internationally acclaimed The President's
Gardens "Al-Ramli is a remarkable storyteller, and in Daughter of
the Tigris he creates a dynamic, intricately plotted narrative,
brimming with stories and a host of memorable characters" Susannah
Tarbush, Banipal On the sixth day of Ramadan, in a land without
bananas, Qisma leaves for Baghdad with her husband-to-be to find
the body of her father. But in the bloodiest year of a bloody war,
how will she find one body among thousands? For Tariq, this is more
than just a marriage of convenience: the beautiful, urbane Qisma
must be his, body and soul. But can a sheikh steeped in genteel
tradition share a tranquil bed with a modern Iraqi woman? The
President has been deposed, and the garden of Iraq is full of
presidents who will stop at nothing to take his place. Qisma is
afraid - afraid for her son, afraid that it is only a matter of
time before her father's murderers come for her. The only way to
survive is to take a slice of Iraq for herself. But ambition is the
most dangerous drug of all, and it could just seal Qisma's fate.
Translated from the Arabic by Luke Leafgren REVIEWS FOR THE
PRESIDENT'S GARDENS 'Though firmly rooted in its context, The
President's Gardens' concerns are universal. It is a profoundly
moving investigation of love, death and injustice, and an
affirmation of the importance of dignity, friendship and meaning
amid oppression. Its light touch and persistent humour make it an
enormous pleasure to read' Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian. The
President's Gardens evokes the fantastical, small town feel of One
Hundred Years of Solitude Tom Gordon, Financial Times 'No author is
better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic
literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting'
Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
The indistinct status of the Zainichi has meant that, since the
late 1940s, two ethnic Korean associations, the Chongryun
(pro-North) and the Mindan (pro-South) have been vying for
political loyalty from the Zainichi, with both groups initially
opposing their assimilation in Japan. Unlike the Korean diasporas
living in Russia, China or the US, the Zainichi have become sharply
divided along political lines as a result. Myung Ja Kim examines
Japan's changing national policies towards the Zainichi in order to
understand why this group has not been fully integrated into Japan.
Through the prism of this ethnically Korean community, the book
reveals the dynamics of alliances and alignments in East Asia,
including the rise of China as an economic superpower, the security
threat posed by North Korea and the diminishing alliance between
Japan and the US. Taking a post-war historical perspective, the
research reveals why the Zainichi are vital to Japan's state policy
revisionist aims to increase its power internationally and how they
were used to increase the country's geopolitical leverage.With a
focus on International Relations, this book provides an important
analysis of the mechanisms that lie behind nation-building policy,
showing the conditions controlling a host state's treatment of
diasporic groups.
A Story for All Americans: Vietnam, Victims, and Veterans (formerly
titled, Touched by the Dragon) details wartime accounts of average
servicemen and women - some heroic, some frightening, some amusing,
some nearly unbelievable. The work is a historical compendium of
fascinating and compelling stories woven together in a theme
format. What makes this book truly unique, however, is its absence
of literary pretentiousness. Relating oral accounts, the veterans
speak in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact way. As seen through the
eyes of the veterans, the stories include first-person experiences
of infantry soldiers, a flight officer, a medic, a nurse, a combat
engineer, an intelligence soldier, and various support personnel.
Personalities emerge gradually as the veterans discuss their
pre-war days, their training and preparation for Vietnam, and their
actual in-country experiences. The stories speak of fear and
survival: the paranoia of not knowing who or where the enemy was;
the bullets, rockets, and mortars that could mangle a body or snuff
out a life in an instant; and going home with a CMH - not the
Congressional Medal of Honor, but a Casket with Metal Handles. The
veterans also speak of friendships and simple acts of kindness. But
more importantly, they speak of healing - both physical and mental.
In the early 1990s, false reports of Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait
allowing premature infants to die by removing them from their
incubators helped to justify the Persian Gulf War, just as spurious
reports of weapons of mass destruction later undergirded support
for the Iraq War in 2003. In The Discourse of Propaganda, John Oddo
examines these and other such cases to show how successful wartime
propaganda functions as a discursive process. Oddo argues that
propaganda is more than just misleading rhetoric generated by one
person or group; it is an elaborate process that relies on
recontextualization, ideally on a massive scale, to keep it alive
and effective. In a series of case studies, he analyzes both
textual and visual rhetoric as well as the social and material
conditions that allow them to circulate, tracing how instances of
propaganda are constructed, performed, and repeated in diverse
contexts, such as speeches, news reports, and popular, everyday
discourse. By revealing the agents, (inter)texts, and cultural
practices involved in propaganda campaigns, The Discourse of
Propaganda shines much-needed light on the topic and challenges its
readers to consider the complicated processes that allow propaganda
to flourish. This book will appeal not only to scholars of rhetoric
and propaganda but also to those interested in unfolding the
machinations motivating America's recent military interventions.
We've all seen the images from Abu Ghraib: stress positions, US
soldiers kneeling on the heads of prisoners, and dehumanizing
pyramids formed from black-hooded bodies. We have watched officials
elected to our highest offices defend enhanced interrogation in
terms of efficacy and justify drone strikes in terms of retribution
and deterrence. But the mainstream secular media rarely addresses
the morality of these choices, leaving us to ask individually: Is
this right? In this singular examination of the American discourse
over war and torture, Douglas V. Porpora, Alexander Nikolaev, Julia
Hagemann May, and Alexander Jenkins investigate the opinion pages
of American newspapers, television commentary, and online
discussion groups to offer the first empirical study of the
national conversation about the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the
revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib a year later.
Post-Ethical Society is not just another shot fired in the ongoing
culture war between conservatives and liberals, but a pensive and
ethically engaged reflection of America's feelings about itself and
our actions as a nation. And while many writers and commentators
have opined about our moral place in the world, the vast amount of
empirical data amassed in Post-Ethical Society sets it apart - and
makes its findings that much more damning.
The Korean War is often referred to as the "forgotten war". In his
book, professor James N Butcher relives his experiences as an
infantryman with Fox Company of the 17th Infantry Regiment, during
the final year of the Korean War (1952-1953). In a graphic
portrayal of living conditions on the front, Butcher describes
combat actions that occurred in two major battles of this period --
the Battle for Jane Russell Hill (a part of Triangle Ridge) and the
first Battle of Pork Chop Hill -- and makes a strong case for why
we as Americans need to remember what happened there and why.
"An overwhelmingly eloquent book of the purest and most simple writing on Vietnam."—David Halberstam
More than twenty-five years after the official end of the Vietnam War, Dear America allows us to witness the war firsthand through the eyes of the men and women who served in Vietnam. In this collection of more than 200 letters, they share their first impressions of the rigors of life in the bush, their longing for home and family, their emotions over the conduct of the war, and their ache at the loss of a friend in battle. Poignant in their rare honesty, the letters from Vietnam are "riveting,...extraordinary by [their] very ordinariness...for the most part, neither deep nor philosophical, only very, very human" (Los Angeles Times). Revealing the complex emotions and daily realities of fighting in the war, these close accounts offer a powerful, uniquely personal portrait of the many faces of Vietnam's veterans. Over 100,000 copies sold.
"Not a history book, not a war novel....Dear America is a book of truth."—Boston Globe
Cowboys Over Iraq tells the amazing story of leadership,
innovation, and initiative demonstrated by a brotherhood that was
forged in the crucible of combat during the invasion of Iraq. "What
does it take to fly and fight with America's Air Cavalry? That's
the story of Cowboys Over Iraq. You'll meet bold personalities
right out of a Hollywood movie. You'll be right there as Jimmy
Blackmon and his fellow Cavalry troopers track down and tangle with
determined foes. You'll experience the highs of triumph and the
lows of bitter loss. Most importantly, you'll see how and why Jimmy
Blackmon learned hard-won leadership and battle lessons in the
deadly skies of Iraq. Strap in. Hang on. Get ready to go hunting
with the Air Cav."-Daniel P. Bolger, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army,
Retired; Commander, 1st Cavalry Division 2008-2010 "A great read by
an exceptional combat aviator, leader, and writer! Jimmy Blackmon
captures brilliantly the enthralling story of the air cavalry unit
that was the eyes and ears of the 101st Airborne Division (Air
Assault) during the fight to Baghdad and throughout the first year
in Iraq-when I was privileged to command the division. He captures
vividly, as well, the courage, skill, and feel for the battlefield
of the gifted pilot and commander of the squadron, Lieutenant
Colonel Steve Schiller, to whom we turned repeatedly when the
missions were the toughest."-General David Petraeus (U.S. Army,
Ret.); Commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault),
Multinational Force-Iraq, US Central Command, and coalition and
U.S. forces in Afghanistan
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