I found this book to be very interesting. Kelly includes a rich description of Vietnam and her people.

Katie Kelly went back to Vietnam to work with the half American street kids of Saigon. She was a friend to them and tried to teach them English. In her book she chronicles their life histories and what it meant to live in a society where taunting by their fellow students drove most of them out of school after five years or less. Her year in Saigon and her subsequent efforts on behalf of those lost Americans reveals what a decent human being she is. Would that we would have more like her.

This wasn't a bad book if you wanted to know about the history of sniping. The stories from real-life snipers read like a novel, and they were entertaining. However, if you want to know about the applications and tools of snipers, this book isn't worth it.

One shot one kill is a terrific book for those who enjoy reading the experiences of snipers from all parts of history.It gives amazing accounts from World War II and the Vietnam War among others.It's an especially good book because the authors have a huge base of knowledge on the subject and have an effective way of explaining the circumstances in which the snipers in this book preformed their duties.Again a terrific book that will make one appreciate the art of sniping.

The art of sniping from the American Revolution to Korea then to Vietnam. The best of the best are portrayed in this easy to read novel. For all of those who have read Marine Sniper this is a must read. Snipers from Carlos Hathcock to Jim Land tell their story in this fast paced book. It is very informative and explains each situation and the art of sniping. It gets my seal of approval, and is a must read.

War in a Time of Peace is a well-written account of several foreign policy challenges that faced the Clinton administration. The book has sparked debate both on the role of US foreign policy and popular interest in international affairs. To supplement understanding of this complex topic Robert Kagan wrote an excellent, and lengthy, review of this book- expanding on many of the issues Mr. Halberstam raised. Mr. Kagan explores the Vietnam Syndrome effect on policy makers, its resulting impact on military intervention during the 1990's, and the motivations of public support for military intervention. A combined reading of Mr. Halberstam's book and Mr. Kagan's essay is esential to understand the breadth and direction of U.S. foreign policy. The essay "When America Blinked" is available online (. . .)

Halberstam expertly chronicles American foreign policy after the fall of the Soviet Union. He starts with the end of the cold war under Bush senior, when the cold war ended, America no longer wanted to worry about foreign policy. Unfortunately President Bush did not realize this. Bush and his people ran his election campaign poorly and lost to Clinton.
Clinton believed that he could ignore foreign policy. He had no interest in it and he ended up with the wrong though very capable people, in the wrong places. Clinton did not specify goals or methods. He did not give any direction to his subordinates until the new administration realized that foreign policy could effect the all important image of the administration.
Halberstam explores in depth what happened when some people wanted to intervene against Serbia and the President did not want to. He details the decisions and relations between the people who made the decisions. He also describes the people and their background, explaining why the people made the decisions they did. Halberstam also spends some time discussing the disaster in Somalia and the events in Haiti.
Halberstam's book is a veritable who's who of Clinton's administration. He describes the strengths and faults of many people, some barely known in Bush administration as well as Clinton's , without favoritism to either party. Halberstam lauds Republicans such as Colin Powell as well as Democrats such as Bentsen. Halberstam's descriptions of the individuals does get a bit tedious at times, but it always is informative.

I had a professor who defined journalism as "history written in a hurry." In his sequel to The Best And The Brightest author David Halberstam uses the journalist's tools - personal interviews and background research - to explore how the shadow of Vietnam and the Cold War shaped the United States' foreign policy during the 1990s.

What emerges, is a thoughtful, portrait of the United States from the perspective of its foreign policy decisions. It is a book written for thoughtful citizens; a book that, clearly, was not written in a hurry; a book that unearths the struggles, egos and the political maneuvering among the key figures in The White House, the State Department and the military. Halberstam shows how the decisions of Vietnam War Veterans, like Colin Powell and Anthony Lake, and those who were not, like President William Clinton, influenced American politics and policy.

Lesser-known players who contributed to the picture were not overlooked. Halberstam notes that the irony of the Gulf War was the wrong branch of the service and the wrong military leaders were celebrated at its conclusion. Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell received ovations for their humiliation of an allegedly mighty, but now bedraggled Iraqi Army.

If one man was responsible, he notes, it was an innovative air force strategist, Colonel John Warden. At the time of the Gulf War, Warden was the head of a top-secret air force group working within The Pentagon and represented a group of younger military officers who were eager to adapt military thinking and planning to the uses of the new technological advanced weaponry.

The major opposition to his thinking came not from the army or even civilians, but rather senior officers in his service branch, especially three and four star generals attached to the Tactical Air Command. They believed the airpower was there to support the army on the ground. They despised Warden and his ideas. As luck would have it, when General Schwarzkopf requested an air plan for Desert Storm, Warden's senior officer was on leave and the request found its way to his desk.

Roy Gutman, an American reporter who happened to be in Yugoslavia in 1991 and was starting to write what would be a series of prophetic dispatches for Newsday, the Long Island, New York daily, is another unknown player. Stationed in Belgrade from 1973 to 1975 as a Reuter's correspondent, he had embraced what he termed as "the golden age of Tito", a Serbo-centrism that tempered the vision of many western diplomats and journalists.

On his return in 1991 he saw signs that Yugoslavia was becoming a different country. An interview with Vojislav Seselj, an ultra nationalist Serb who had once been jailed by Tito for his ethnic views and was known for his personal cruelty, convinced the journalist that something sinister was about to happen with its likely epicenter as Banja Luka, a city in Northern Bosnia, which time which prove to be the home of the Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Halberstam's search for the real story behind the headlines gives the reader clear insights into why events in the Balkans, Haiti and Somalia reflect American foreign policy and politics. He discusses the wariness of the U. S. military to ever be caught again in a ground war lacing clear objectives, the frustrations of political leaders who never served in the military and their effects on American commanders in Kosovo.

On the last page of the book, the author allows himself a glimpse into our future, which in light of the events of September 11, 2001 proves tragically prescient. Writing in May, 2001, Halberstam, allows himself to speculate about the need for a missile shield, what he terms "a high-tech Maginot Line, the wrong idea at the wrong time." He notes that intelligence analysts believe "the threat to an open society like America c[o]mes from terrorists, rather than the military power of rogue states" which themselves present an exceptional target.

The author has carved a unique niche for himself. His books are the product of four to five years of research, a luxury few, if any other journalists are indulged. The emerging portrait of the United States is vivid and full of human detail.

In this new book by Stephen King, we are presented five stories, each with an omniscent title that we can only wonder what they mean...

"Low Men in Yellow Coats" demonstrates the ultimate fact that King may be running out of ideas. The reason being is that if you look into his novels, they can all be tied into the "Drak Tower" series, which is tied into the novel "The Stand" very slightly. All and all, the story is good, but the ending is rediculous.

"Hearts in Atlantis" is the second story in the book, and by far the best work that King has ever written. It presents forth a college student and his friends who, if they cannot keep their grades up in college, will be drafted into the Vietnam War. This story portrays the mixed emotions that people felt in the sixties, as well as giving a human side to why students would go risk their lives just for a game...

"We Were in Vietnam" and "Blind Willie" were two stories that portrayed what had happened two some of the characters from "Low Men in Yellow Coats," and the give the feel that after the Vietnam War, the lives of some may have gotten better, but they still had to deal with their own personal demons from their past, as well as seeing their own mortailty...

"Heavnely Shades of Night Falling" flashes forward about thirty years to show us what has brought Bobby Grafield home. Extremely short, it gives insight into Bobby's life since the end of the first story, as well as reunites him with a lost piece of his past. This story demonstrates that King needed a page filler, and was probably working on a deadline.

Overall, by the book for the second story, because it is by far the best and most captivating.

"Hearts In Atlantis" marks merely the second King novel I've read("The Green Mile" being the first). I started this book unfamiliar of what it was about(the back of the book gives away little) and what to expect."Low Men In Yellow Coats"(the first story of 5) was my favorite. It had the most story line and was written beautifully. And although I didn't understand the 'low men', I loved what King did with eleven-year-old Bobby's experiences with Ted, Carol, his mother, etc. I agree with another reviewer on the title story, "Hearts In Atlantis", in that it was written like an essay from a 1st person view. Although interesting to see what these students went through, I failed to see the point of it. The only reason I could think of that King would put it in there was to include an autobiography(cause that's sure what it read like) and to incorporate Carol and update her charachter. What I want to know is why King titled his novel after this story. It had a weak, quik ending, as well. Putting all that aside, though, the style in this story was definately the best(even better than Green Mile) of the book. "Blind Willie" seemed like it was just...there, although I liked the minute-to-minute format King wrote it in. And the final two stories summed it up fairly well, although leaving many questions unanswered. I am giving it four stars for the outstanding style and that little bit of plot at the beggining and end. All in all it was a good novel, and a very enjoying novel.

This is the first Stephen King book I have actually read. I've listened to a few on tape and seen a few movies based on his books, but actually reading his words is a moving experience.

I purchased this book mainly because it is divided into five stories and, since I was going to be travelling on business for a few days, I thought it would make great airplane reading. It turned out that I couldn't wait for my meetings to end so I could go back to my room and read!

I was born at about the time the second story takes place and was raised in a college town, so I remember the tail end of the Viet Nam War era and the college demonstrations. I was too young to experience the whole era and, consequently, there were parts of the book I didn't understand, but I can recommend it highly nonetheless.

It was interesting how he carried the characters through the book and showed us how they were changed throughout their life experiences. The last few pages tie it all together nicely.

I plan to read much more of Stephen King after reading this book. He can turn a phrase and provoke a thought like few authors can.

As with other readers who have read some of Webb's earlier novels, especially the excellent Fields of Fire, I looked forward to an in-depth look at postwar Vietnam and Saigon as seen through the eyes of an author who had intimate knowledge of the area. I was assigned to the American Embassy in Saigon in 1973-74, so was very familiar with the city and anxious to see how it had changed in the last 25 years. How sadly disappointed I was, then, with this meager work. In spite of glowing acclaim from such lumanaries as Senator John McCain, and Senator Robert Kerry, who should have known better, Webb has produced a novel with a pain-in-the-neck leading character (Brandon Condley), an inane story line, a weak plot, cartoon-like secondary characters, and no insight at all into what the end-result of the Vietnam war was all about. It reads in fact,like it was written especially for the next Bruce Willis movie. Hardly a recommendation. For me it's back to the next Wilbur Smith and a good read.

What a delightful book! Webb has given us a look at a Vietnam that we can only experience through a book like this. It is a work of fiction, of course, but it reads like non-fiction. The descriptions of Saigon, Bangkok, Moscow and Honolulu are as sharp and realistic as in any well-written travel guide.

The characters are well-drawn and robust, and in Dzung and Professor Muir the author has created top-notch supporting players for Brandon Condley, the ex-Marine lieutenant who is the main character.

The plot works well given the setting and the characters. and the book holds the reader's interest right through the last page. Some of the outcomes are a little stretched, but none farfetched.

This is a book about (and by) a man who loves Vietnam and the Vietnamese people. It is also a most pleasant reading experience.

Jim Webb, author of Fields of Fire (the best book yet on the real war in Vietnam) returns again to Vietnam's battlefields in Lost Soldiers. The time, however, is the present. The protagonist is a former Marine lieutenant--a fictional member of Webb's generation--now involved in the search for MIA's. His search reveals instead evidence that one of the MIA's may have been a deserter, a traitor, and may still be alive.

In pursuit of this deserter, Webb takes us through a number of well-drawn locations--Saigon, Bangkok, and Honolulu--that he obviously knows well, and loves. More important, we meet a number of Webb's typically well-developed characters, of several nationalities, who carry this thrilling--but thoughtful--book to a satisfying conclusion. I won't give away the plot, but the reader will find it both believable and gripping.

In so many ways, Jim Webb is the most fortunate of men. In each of his many incarnations--Marine hero, lawyer, Congressional aide, best-selling novelist, award-winning journalist, assistant secretary of defense, and secretary of the navy--he has excelled. But, releasing Lost Soldiers on September 10 was not one of his--or his publisher's--luckiest moves. The events of September 11 clearly and properly dampened the country's desire for books and all other entertainment.

It would be a shame, however, for this fine book to become one of the casualties of September 11. Buy it, and give yourself a few hours of diversion from the TV news. You won't regret having done so.

This book is one of the school in looking at the Vietnam was that "America could have done things better but".

Before discussing the thesis of the book lets look briefly at the war. Before the 1950's it had been easy for European Powers to conquer colonies with fairly minimal use of military power. The forces used by the Dutch, the English and the French were small although well equipped and well trained. Without going into the wrongs and the rights what went wrong in Vietnam.

What happened initially was that a local communist insurgency developed in South Vietnam. North Vietnam supplied its weapons using a port in Cambodia. The South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was for whatever reason unable to deal with this insurgency. The United States sponsored a coup to change the leadership of Vietnam. Shortly after it started to send combat troops to fight alongside the ARVN and to use its air force to bomb targets in North Vietnam. The United States thus had a strong military force, which had at all times total air superiority. It should not be forgotten that the army contributed by the United States combined with the ARVN was an enormous force which at all times had technological superiority over its opponents.

Due in some degree to the success of the United States tactics and in other parts to the adventurism of the Tet Offensive the local insurgents the Viet Cong were defeated in the main by the end of the 60's. The North Vietnamese were able to keep the war going by deploying units of its regular army. The North Vietnamese regular units were able to infiltrate through Laos which at that time was in chaos and through Cambodia which was officially neutral. The casualties suffered by the North Vietnamese were staggering. The United States were not able to stem this flow despite hiring a mercenary army in Laos and sponsoring a coup in Cambodia to bring to power a government responsive to its interests.

Although the United States could have won a conventional war against North Vietnam an invasion would not have been possible. It is clear that China would have intervened as they did in Korea and they could have won a conventional war against the sort of United States forces that could be deployed in this sort of adventure.

The war showed that bombing was limited in what it could achieve. North Vietnam was a peasant subsistence economy. It was not a complex industrial nation and bombing would only really be effective if it was aimed at civilian targets. This would have been repellent politically. Taking all of these things into account it is hard to see in retrospect how the United States could have won the Vietnam war as long as North Vietnam was willing to pay a big price to keep the war going.

This knowledge however derives from hindsight. Johnson, McNamara and the others involved in turning of this conflict into an American war would not have known the immense price the North was willing to pay to win the war. In 1964 it was clear that a bombing campaign would cause considerable damage to the North setting back its economic growth. It was also clear that the commitment of ground forces would cause enormous casualties to the insurgents. Normally that would have been enough to win such a war.

Now what this book is about is a criticism of the political process that led to the war. The criticism is not one related to the morality of what happened but rather it criticizes civilian decision-makers opting for a policy of "Graduated Military Pressure". This doctrine is really a short hand description of the process that was used in the Cuban missile crisis. McNamara had played a role in this American triumph and wanted to try the same strategy. That is to make a series of demonstrations including air attacks commitments of troops till the other side gives in.

McMasters suggests that the attraction of such an approach was it allowed a slight of hand by which Johnson the President could initially win office and later concentrate government resources on his Great Society Program. He suggests that an assessment by the Joint Chiefs of staff suggested that to win in South Vietnam an army of 500,000 would be needed and that it would take five years.

The problem with the book is however something which comes out as an undercurrent in a lot of American foreign policy writing. That is the myth of American omnipotence. That is that if there is a loss or a set back, rather than such a thing being perhaps inevitable it is due to a mistake or a miscalculation. Thus after the take over of the communists in China in 1949 Truman was accused of losing China, when it is clear that America simply would not have been able to prevent it.

This book falls into the same trap of suggesting that in the mid 60's it would be possible to make a clear prediction about the outcome of the Vietnam War and to develop a measured military policy. There simply wasn't as the critical variable the response of the North Vietnamese and how much punishment they would be willing to take was not clear.

Despite the problems with the basic thesis of the book it is an interesting work based on detailed analysis of recently available material. A must read for anyone interested in the subject.

This book represents an indictment of the Johnson administration and the ramifications of prioritizing personal political fortunes (i.e. presidential legacies) before the national interest. McMaster's describes Kennedy coming to power and bringing in the likes of McNamara and other 'New Frontiersman' to attempt to reform defense policy. He also describes the Kennedy administration dismantling Eisenhower's National Security Council structure, which effectively reduced the Joint Chiefs of Staff's (JCS) voice and influence. Kennedy, having an uneasy relationship with the military, brought in General (Retired) Maxwell Taylor as his 'military representative.' This effectively allowed him to distance the JCS, traditionally sanctioned to provide military advice to the president, from policy making.

For example, McMaster's describes how McNamara and Taylor misrepresented the JCS concerns over the strategy of graduated response. They also deliberately distorted the Khanh's opinion that South Vietnam required a strong response. Johnson, Taylor and McNamara also gave the impression that no decision had been made on a Vietnam strategy to stall any public criticism. McNamara and Taylor were able to co-opt and suppress JCS criticism by encouraging parochialism between the services and providing favors to them in return for no public condemnation. Most who have led soldiers will probably consider the facts described within this book as criminal.

My one criticism of the book rests in its clearly biased thesis. Beginning with the title, McMaster's shows his one sided opinion, yet rigorously substantiates it through detailed research. Had he simply presented the facts, without characterizing them as lies and deliberate machinations of the system, he would have presented a more powerful case. The reader could base his or her own conclusions upon an individual interpretation. Instead, McMaster's shows his predisposition from the beginning, immediately creating suspicion within the reader. Other than this one criticism, the book clearly merits attention by anyone interested in Vietnam, the military, or presidential politics.

Highly recommended for the military and political professionals.

In a book that predates and yet closely parallels the important new work by David Kaiser on the same subject, career military historian H.R. McMaster masterfully indicts both the Pentagon and the civilian leadership for leading us into the Vietnam War in an interesting, provocative, and well-written work of careful scholarship. By doing so he, like Kaiser, has raised the level of intellectual discussion regarding the origins and prosecution of the war in Vietnam. Interestingly, this West Point graduate and career soldier who is also a well-credentialed historian, places blame for American involvement in Vietnam squarely on the shoulders of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their civilian counterparts like Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk. Also like Kaiser's book, it is a worthy companion piece to David Halberstam's memorable book, "The Best And The Brightest", in the fact that it argues that it was a number of specific individuals within the upper reaches of the military and civilian establishment within the government operating with their own personal credos, private agendas, and belief systems that led to the deepening involvement in Southeast Asian affairs.

Using newly available archival and other historical materials, the author argues quite persuasively that both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were seriously misled and mis-served as to the status of ongoing efforts through obfuscations and deliberate deception on the part of individuals such as Dean Rusk, William Westmoreland, and Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense in both Kennedy's and Johnson's administration (see my review of McNamara's book). Thus, Kennedy died in late 1963 believing the situation in Vietnam to be much more constrained and careful than it actually was. With Kennedy's departure from the scene in late 1963, events began to move much more quickly and fatefully toward our blind involvement in a situation we neither appreciated the complexity of nor had any real strategy to deal with. In this sense, Lyndon Johnson became the unwitting dupe of self-interested efforts on the part of Rusk, McNamara, and the Joint Chiefs to massively escalate the war, eventually employing over half a million men in country to try to defeat the communist insurgency.

At each step of the way along the tortuous route into and the quagmire of Vietnam, a quite deliberate campaign of self-serving lies and deceptions was used to deliberately and callously escalate a war that many privately understood could never be meaningfully won. This is a wonderfully written book, and the author's no-nonsense narrative style is lends itself well to debunking the notion that the military were caught in a bind by civilians like Rusk and McNamara. On the contrary, they were willing and often-enthusiastic co-conspirators in the single most disastrous series of military decisions ever made by this country. McMaster writes with authority and candor, and deals with a whole range of issues, complexions, and countervailing situations with aplomb, honesty and verve. He makes the otherwise inexplicable series of decisions to descend into the national madness of the Vietnam War all too understandable and human. And while he does not specifically broach the issue, I still believe that Robert McNamara, General William Westmoreland, and a number of others should be tried as war criminals for crimes against humanity; after all, otherwise to try Serbians and Croats for their detestable deeds in the former Yugoslavia is utter hypocrisy), I believe this book will quickly become one of the standard texts for helping us to understand how the ritual abuse of power by officials not democratically elected can itself become an anti-democratic force profoundly affecting not only the lives of our citizens, but people everywhere in the developing world.

Hopefully books like this will help us to come to understand and accept the reality of what the American government did in our name to Vietnam. We need to understand how we came to export our darkest emotional suspicions and a sense of national paranoia about a monolithic communist threat into an incredibly murderous campaign that almost exterminated a whole generation of Vietnamese by way of indiscriminate carpet bombing, deliberate use of environmentally horrific defoliates, and creation of so-called "free-fire" zones, where everything and anything moving was assumed to be hostile, whether it be man, woman, child, or beast. All of this was visited on the world in general and the Vietnamese in particular for little or no reason other than the extremely aggressive and ultimately dangerous can-do macho world-view of the power elite. The sooner we recognize this, the better it will be for us as citizens of a democratic government, and the more likely it is we will stop the next set of so- inclined bureaucratic monsters from acting in this way again.

Barbara Tuchman is a first-rate writer and historian whose books I have much enjoyed. For some years now I have been meaning to get a copy of "The March of Folly," since it is a book which greatly appeals to me in its concept. To look at the history of modern man (since about 1,000 BC) and take examples of real foolishness on the part of a number of key governments, and try to see why they so acted, strikes me as a wonderful idea for a book. However, I can now say, somewhat reluctantly, that "The March of Folly" is not up to the standard of Tuchman's earlier books. I find this curious indeed and have been wondering for some time why it is so.

Firstly, the writing is not up to par and I can only put this down to sloppy editing. Some of the oddest phrases in the book are so un-Tuchman like, that I imagine they have been written by a researcher and, for whatever reason, have managed to sneak by both the author and her editors. Tuchman is usually crisp and succinct. Some of this text is laborious and redundant; it's most surprising. Perhaps this first fault leads to the second, although not entirely. In "The Guns of August" and "The Proud Tower," Tuchman seems to be in very complete command of both her history and her sources. In "The March of Folly," one begins to wonder if she has not strayed too far afield and is rather unsure of her ground. So it appears to me, especially with reference to the beginning of the book, where she discusses both the siege of Troy and then the Papacy during the Renaissance, when she seems very shaky indeed. Or it may be that this apparent instability is founded on limited research and that that has been allowed to come through in the book. Whatever the reason, I find that the book does not live up to its promise, either conceptually or authorially.

The sections on the American Revolution and the Vietnam War are interesting in themselves, but one wonders at times, given the detail involved in both cases, if Tuchman is not actually off the rails. The fact that there is no stated plan at the beginning of the book (chapters and sub-headings and synopses, I mean) makes me wonder indeed, just how much of a plan she had. So I think you can read this book for its individual content (i.e., if you happen to be interested in the particular periods covered), but the disappointment overall is that the really first-rate text that one might have expected, does not materialise. I will say that the essay at the end is very Tuchmanesque and is a brave attempt, quand même, to tie the threads of the book together. Yet I'm unsure of just how far she can get away with a text that smacks so readily of invention and understudy, and in my opinion, the epilogue is hardly sufficient, by itself, to save the whole. I suppose it is just possible that she and I both got carried away by the title.

Barbara Tuchman has a way of viewing history as few can. Instead of falling back on just "telling of a story," Tuchman does what few historians are able to pull off without sounding self-rightious. She gives us a comentary. Kind of like the "color-man" while listening to a sporting event, Tuchman examines the idea of "folly," or the persistent pursuit of a policy by government or those in power that is "contradictory to their own interests." Since a topic like this could take volumes, the author chooses 4 primary historical examples: the Fall of Troy, the breakup of of the Holy See in the 16th century, the British monarchy's vain attempt to keep the American colonies, and America's own arrogant persistence during the Vietnam War.

The fault in this book is that this subject matter can be pretty exhausting even with the only 450 page book. The examples used are valid and make sense. The author finds something different within each one that allows us to see the many levels of government folly. However I found the chapters dealing with the six terrible popes to be mind-numbing. Perhaps it's due to the fact that this history is not examined extensively in current day curricula like the American Revolution and Vietnam, but I think this section was tedious and repetitive. Also, within the Vietnam chapters, Ms. Tuchman tends to reveal her adoration towards Kennedy--like many historians of her era--and her disdain of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. This can distort her objective examination of the topic in some areas, but if it is noticed and ignored, the rest of the study is outstanding. Some may read these excerpts and label them as "liberal" but they are ignorant of history.

In any event the book is an excellent supplement to studying Machiavellian politics. The governments' "wood-headedness" towards policy that is counter to anything rational (as well as contrary to respected voices of reason) is something that all ordinary members and voters of a democratic society ought to take heed of.

The example of Troy is used simply as an example of how Homer and the Greeks had foreseen and probably experienced, the lack of reason when pursuing particular policy. This is usually done because those in power are so consumed by power and what it brings, that their arrogance and ignorance blinds them.

Without carrying this review too far into the book's wonderful and biting commentary, I will just say that this book is recommended, but not for those that have no real experience with intellectual historical study. Some areas will be interesting, such as the Vietnam chapters, but otherwise the book would dull the amateur historian. But if you do wish to challenge yourself and your understanding of how power corrupts and destroys after it corrupts, then "March of Folly" will be admired.

All politicians should be forced to read this book. Kind of like a supplement instructional manual for their job...paid for by taxpayers. Within 100 years, they might actaully learn something.

In the same way that Pauline Kael used her movie reviews, Barbara Tuchman uses history as an outlet of moral yearning. Every book is a cry of pain and joy for the injustices and beauty of life. Tuchman chooses her subjects carefully to convey a message to her readers, usually a cautionary tale of the abuse of power.

"The March of Folly" is her most direct message yet. In it, she describes the folly of government-defined as action against self-interest despite an overwhelming preponderance of evidence to act otherwise-and how it led to several notable disastrous events. Namely, the sack of Troy, the split of the Catholic See, the loss of the American colonies, and the policy of Vietnam.

But let's face it. Tuchman wrote this book with the Vietnam chapter in mind. Each chapter simply lays the groundwork for the material on Vietnam.

The chapter Trojan Horse provides us the groundwork, the mythic case of folly we are all familiar with, and the lasting image we carry as we consider Vietnam.

The Renaissance popes provides us an example of a self-perpetuating and stale system we can remember when thinking of a moribund Congress mindlessly voting appropriations for a war no one wanted. Consequently that same chapter gives us the image of a pope throwing lavish parties for which he hired prostitutes to crawl about on all fours, completely naked, picking up scattered chestnuts with their mouths-which might remind some of our own nation's zeal in its misuse of third-world nations-El Salvador, Iran, Panama, and Vietnam spring to mind-in Cold War play.

The chapter on the loss of the American colonies allows readers to take pride in their forefathers' proaction and righteousness in comparison to the slothful and ignorant course corrupt, money-bought English Parliament followed, before comparing U.S. government in the 1950s-60s to those same English aristocrats of the 1770s. This chapter later raises uncomfortable questions about the U.S. anti-nationalistic policy in Vietnam, which worked against self-determination and, consequently, democracy.

But by the time she arrives in Vietnam, she has stored up too much information. Tuchman bombards us with so many facts, memos, and bad decisions that we get lost in a labyrinth. Her prose gets bogged down. We forget where we are in the war, every page sounds the same, and it ends up so overwhelming that it's ineffective. It's like she's waited years to write this chapter, and has done too much research and wants to cram it all in a few pages.

In the end, I have to agree with other reviewers who say it's not her best work. It is a work of passion. And as such, it's admirable for its passion, because it all rings true.

PS - Ignore all that conservative/liberal claptrap. Both sides of the political coin had their hands bloodied in Vietnam. And if you can't learn from your mistakes, you're bound to repeat them.

For my tastes, Nelson DeMille writes good books and marginal ones. Thanks to "Up Country" arriving in Hong Kong a month or so before its U.S. release date, I've read the book and thought I would offer a few observations to fans and new readers alike.

"Up Country" is billed in the blurb as a military murder mystery that took place 30 years ago in Vietnam. Paul Brenner, of "General's Daughter" fame, is back, called upon by his old commanding officer to return to Vietnam and investigate the killing of a U.S. lieutenant by his captain during the Tet Offensive.

The reason I say "billed as a murder mystery" is because the action of that plot line takes up only about fifty pages of this 654-page novel. The rest is travelogue, war history and personal reminiscence.

DeMille at his best does description and dialogue well. The fact that Paul Brenner of "Up Country" is indistinguishable in attitude and conversation from John Corey in "The Lion's Game" doesn't detract too much. I like cynical, sarcastic characters, and I suspect that it is DeMille's personality coming through, which makes me like him more. And since the author was in Vietnam at the same time as his protagonist, I'm even more convinced that we're listening to Nelson DeMille strolling down memory lane. That is not necessarily a bad thing if you approach the book from this angle.

What was troublesome for me, having read many of his other books, was turning the pages looking for a little action. Don't hold your breath. It's a travel book - good for those who never served and want to know how it was, or for those who served and never returned but would like to from the comfort of their sofas. But it was a let-down for someone who was there and imagined that when he finally went back it would be by plane rather than by book.

I spent the same time in the same places and saw many of the same paddy fields (they mostly look alike) as Paul Brenner, but rather than experiencing camaraderie with this character, I felt he had taken me hostage for a returning-veterans tour. To paraphrase one of the statements in the book -- Been there. Three times. Done that. Six times - and I hadn't planned on doing it again.

If you'll forget you just read "The Lion's Game" and get in the mood for in-country musings and meanderings, you just may enjoy the trip. After all, the man can still write.

On a nitpicking level, his two main characters are always smiling. They say things followed by: "He smiled." or "She smiled." Smiled, smiled, smiled... but then they're in love, or are they just good enemies? It got a bit old, but that's just personal taste because the author is doing it deliberately. And I noticed that "none" is too often used with a plural verb, as in "None of them are going...."

I like Nelson DeMille and I look forward to his books. And he's certainly allowed to change the pace. But in this case, forwarned would have been forearmed.

So that you can gauge my taste in "DeMilles," I've read "The Charm School" three times, "The Lion's Game" twice, "Word of Honor" twice and enjoyed the "The General's Daughter." Even in a foxhole with nothing else at hand, however, I wouldn't reread "Plum Island" or "Spencerville." "Gold Coast" is somewhere in the middle, now joined by "Up Country."

I thought Nelson DeMille's first novel, Word of Honor, was a critical success, a thoughtful exploration of a former army officer who is charged with a murder committed during his Viet Nam tour, years after his discharge.

Since DeMille successfully published other novels, I have no doubt Word of Honor was also a commercial success. In my mind, although commercial successes, these other novels, failed critically.

With Up Country, DeMille demonstrates he has not lost his critical touch. He melds his emotionally draining experience of a return trip to Viet Nam in 1997 with his successful commercial formula and produces a great novel. The story is simple. Paul Brenner, retired from the army's Criminal Investigation Division and a Viet Nam vet, is asked to return to Viet Nam and investigate an American army lieutenant's death, who authorities suspect may have been murdered three decades ago.

DeMille's commercial formula remains the same. A strong, independent-minded, wise-cracking male falls in love with a self-assured female and together the overcome intrigue, action and adventure.

Brenner's emotional journey as he unearths his own painful memories of Viet Nam makes the book worth reading and in my mind, vaults it to critical success. As the author concludes, a journey home is never direct, but somewhere along the way, we discover that it is more relevant than the destination and the people we meet along its path will be traveling companions in our minds for the rest of our lives.

DeMille always relates a great story; this one is worth reading carefully.

Nelson Demille opens his newest novel, Up Country, with the old saying that "Bad things come in threes." With this latest book, Demille's Paul Brenner returns for a third trip to Vietnam, this time thirty years after his two tours during the war. Investigating the thirty-year-old murder of an Army Lieutenant by a an Army Captain during the Battle of Quang Tri, Brenner not only must deal with the ghosts of his past as an infantryman during the war, but with the present less-than-friendly security police of Hanoi and their Washington counterparts. As I've grown to expect from his previous work, I was laughing out loud by the end of the first page, but there is far more to this story and a good suspense yarn and witty dialogue.

Demille doesn't paint any rosy pictures of Vietnam, now or then. This book -- as well as Word of Honor -- touches on the darkest parts of the human psyche and explores significantly deeper psychological territory than the average suspense thriller. I couldn't put this one down.

I'm a Gulf War veteran, and a writer (Prayer at Rumayla: A Novel of the Gulf War), so I tend to read a lot of more serious war fiction (two of my favorites are The Things They Carried and Fields of Fire). Word of Honor fits in that tradition more than this novel, but this is still one of the better books I've read this year.

As always, I was unhappy to reach the end.

I'd read a lot about how prescient Stone was about the drug trade and American involvement abroad, so I picked this book up, excited about a literary author who actually seemed interested in getting the reader's blood pumping. In any case, I was disappointed: I'm not sure how novel this was when it appeared in the 70s, but many of its scenes have become standard cliches of the movies - the torture scene, the bags of drugs, the shootouts in precarious and picturesque locations.

Perhaps it isn't fair to criticize a book for how much it's been imititated, but a genuine work of art shouldn't lose much of its lustre just because of mediocre followers, and I found myself genuinely bored by a great deal of Dog Soldiers. The only scene that showed the talent of the author was the surreal conversation between the central character and his slightly crazy mother. I haven't read A Flag For Sunrise or any of Stone's other books, but I'd certainly try those before this one.

Stone's DOG SOLDIERS is a fine book, but if you happen to see this without exploring the rest of the reviews on Amazon -- access them. The novel was assigned as a high school project in Iowa, and the kids who had to read it seem to have flocked en masse online (perhaps part of the project) to review it. I found reading these reviews very entertaining, and recommend the experience to anyone, though it won't tell you much about the book. I like kids, what can I say. Now that that's out of the way, Stone is one of the most important (and most strangely neglected) writers of the 20th Century. I think comparisons with Hemingway and Conrad are a bit off the mark; this novel is far more reminiscent of COMEDIANS-era Graham Greene, in his troubled Catholicism and concern for the decline of religion in the 20th Century. While Stone is hardly interested in promulgating any particular religious point of view, he IS a moralist, and a scathing critic of what we've become without a sense of God. This novel can be read, I think, as a crucifixion myth of sorts, made relevant to the 20th Century. It IS dark, but it's brilliantly paced and written, and a fairly accurate look at the time it deals with. Stone, by the way, talks of a recurring dream he has, where he's bringing drugs or contraband into a country, usually on a ship, and knows that he is about to be caught. This motif informs the paranoid tenor of the novel. A final point: the title has nothing to do with Lakota warrior societies, and is a bit of a misappropriation. It appears to be a reference to the proverb "better a living dog than a dead lion," which Converse muses on in the text. The outstanding performances by Michael Moriarity as Converse and Richard Masur (who usually seems to have a limited range) as Danskin are two really good reasons to see the film...

I first picked up this novel about fifteen years ago, after I'd seen the film adaptation of it-the strangely titled "Who'll Stop the Rain" with Nick Nolte and Michael Moriarty. I had never read any of Stone's work before, and I was absolutely blown away by this, his second novel and winner of the National Book Award. The story of drug smugglers in the waning days of Vietnam, the novel owes much to American Naturalism (Stone has been compared to Conrad, but I think Jack London and Stephen Crane are closer), but filtered through the post-war sensibility of Ken Kesey or even Hunter S. Thomson. Fast-paced and utterly plausible, the narrative ranges from the shadowy cafes of war-time Hanoi to the lawless valleys of the American southwest. Throughout, Stone describes the varying landscapes of moral corruption with equal vividness and intelligence. For my money, "Dog Soldiers" is the best novel of the 70s, and yet it still seems completely contemporary today. I re-read it every few years and always discover something new.

Lewis Sorley, in his book "A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam", makes the boldest statement that I have heard or read regarding the Vietnam War. On page 217 Sorley writes, "There came a time when the war was won. The fighting wasn't over, but the war was won. This achievement can probably best be dated in late 1970..." This is a very provocative statement considering what we know the final result of the Vietnam War to be.

With "A Better War" Sorley attempts to portray America's last years in Vietnam, a time period from roughly the emergence of Creighton Abrams right before he took command to when we pulled out, as a time when America held within its grasp, if not victory in Vietnam, then at least the potential for the same strategic stalemate we achieved in Korea. Sorley details how this victory slipped through our fingers as a result of political reverses at home and not military reverses in Indochina.

While saying that we had the war won may not be entirely accurate, we were certainly doing better than what has been portrayed in most accounts of the war. We were approaching our ultimate goal of creating a viable nation state out of South Vietnam that would be a bulwark against the spread of communism in southeast Asia. It is Sorley's belief that we had mostly achieved that goal by late 1970.

Sorley seems to think that the main reason we faired so poorly in Vietnam was because of failed tactics at the beginning of the conflict. He faults William Westmoreland for not paying enough attention to Vietnamese forces and by employing a strategic plan that was more interested in killing the enemy than in providing a secure environment for the Vietnamese people.

Sorley also believes that a combination of civil unrest over Vietnam and biased reporting by the media, especially Walter Cronkite, was the main contributing factor in America losing the war. President Nixon was unwilling to expend the political capital to be able to undertake the necessary military actions that would bring the North Vietnamese to their knees. Each new "escalation" of the conflict brought ever stronger rebuke upon Nixon until he just stopped fighting against it and made the fateful decision to withdraw all American troops whether the South Vietnamese were ready to accept all the responsibility or not.

The end of the Vietnam War is easily America's most shameful moment. It is so not because we fought there or even because we didn't achieve our objective. It is our national shame because of the way in which we bailed out on a people who were totally dependent upon us for their freedom and their lives. Without American assistance the South Vietnamese didn't stand a chance against the North Vietnamese onslaught. The American president knew this, the Congress knew this, and, worse yet, the people knew this and they just didn't care.

The worst thing that was ever said by an American about the war was said by President Gerald Ford. At a time when North Vietnamese soldiers were overrunning the South Vietnamese countryside, terrorizing and killing the people at will, Ford said during a speech he was giving at Tulane University, "As far as the United States is concerned, the war in Vietnam is finished." Yes, President Ford, the war may be over but America's shame from abandoning the Vietnamese people will never go away.

Vietnam has always been characterised as a big mistake that was a lost cause from the get-go! Sorley shows that it was winnable, and was in fact, won; if we had only stayed the course.

The telling comment that should give all Americans pause; is that the Russians and Communist Chinese proved to be more reliable allies to North Vietnam than the USA was for South Vietnam.

No war is perfect or is perfectly managed; but this one, as Sorley shows, was winnable had our country not caved in to the war protestors, negative assessments by the media and self-serving politicians. Had we stayed the course, South Vietnam would now be free and vibrant rather than the economic basket case it is under the communists.

I'm thankful that historians like Lewis Sorley are now telling the true story of the Vietnam War. I only hope this book is read by all objective minded Americans.

This well researched book answers some of the questions I had about Robert McNamara's book (Argument Without End) by examining the 1972 offensive and its use of newer sources (such as DeForest). I personally interviewed many of the NVA who particiapted in the An Loc offensive. Later I heard from a well placed source that the NVA was within days of a surrender during the bombing. Others have discredited that story, but one wonders if it were true or not.

I hope that Sorley has the opportunity to read more of the Vietnamese literature and to talk to the Vietnamese. IF is always open to speculation, but one wonders if a victory of the south in 75 would have ended it. I don't think so.

However, it is difficult to support the idea that the war could not be won. After all, we did much better in Korea. Can someone explain why it was so different in Vietnam?