Best Books on the Vietnam War

"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C." H. R.

The characteristic act of men at war is not dying, but killing. Politicians and military historians may gloss over human slaughter, emphasizing the defense of national honor, but for men in active service, warfare means being or becoming efficient killers.

In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a smalltime journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action and profit by getting involved in a bigtime drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him.

Little Cricket keeps the viewpoint tight on twelve-year-old Kia, opening in everyday village rhythms before war forces the family to flee and spend years in a Thai refugee camp. The book's strength is its focus on small domestic details and family dynamics, which build empathy for civilian experience without graphic spectacle. Its main limitation is pacing: the middle sections can feel episodic and repetitive as camp life unfolds, so readers seeking plot-forward momentum or military detail may find the tone too restrained.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEWritten with the style of a great novelist and the intrigue of a Cold War thriller, Embers of War is a landmark work that will forever change your understanding of how and why America went to war in Vietnam.

"Simply the most powerful and moving book that has emerged on this topic." UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONALThe national bestseller that tells the truth of about Vietnam from the black soldiers' perspective.

CRACKER IS ONE OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY'S MOST VALUABLE WEAPONS: a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs, traps, and the enemy. The fate of entire platoons rests on her keen sense of smell. She's a Big Deal, and she likes it that way.

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…

A young boy and his father visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Lynda Van Devanter was the girl next door, the cheerleader who went to Catholic schools, enjoyed sports, and got along well with her four sisters and parents.

Reprint of an alltime classic on the Vietnam War Originally published in 1961, before the United States escalated its involvement in South Vietnam, Street without Joy offered a clear warning about what American forces would face in the jungles of Southeast Asia: a costly and…

s/t: America & Vietnam During the Kennedy EraPulitzerprize winning author David Halberstam's eyewitness account of the most critical political period of U.S. involvement in Vietnamthe Kennedy/Diem era remains as fresh and stimulating today as when it was first published in 1965.

Vietnam, 1968. A nightmarish landscape blackened by napalm and littered with oncehuman debris. Where victories are measured in mountains of corpses and ordinary men are transformed into obsessive executioners. This is the brutally honest story of Cpl.

Frances FitzGerald's landmark history of Vietnam and the Vietnam War, "A compassionate and penetrating account of the collision of two societies that remain untranslatable to one another." (New York Times Book Review)This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald's many…

An extraordinary selection of the finest and bestknown art from the American war in Vietnam, from Tim O'Brien to Marvin Gaye, from mainstream bestsellers to radical poetry.This authoritative and accessible volume includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, photography,…

Vietnam.A young American soldier waits for his enemy, rifle in hand, finger on the trigger. He is afraid to move and yet afraid not to move. Gunshots crackle in the still air. The soldier fires blindly into the distant trees at an unseen enemy.

Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier, provides a strikingly honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed his life, his country, and the people who live there.