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Title: The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam ISBN: 0-449-90870-4 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 26 October, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.63 (30 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Reads as if it were written yesterday.
Comment: When I read "The Best and the Brightest" I could not believe how fresh it was, despite the fact that it was written in 1972 it feels as if it were written yesterday. I am amazed at how much information Halberstam was able to collect in the late 1960s, before the Freedom of Information Act, and while the war was still raging, about the Vietnam War and the decisions that led up to it. If Halberstam were to sit down today to write this book, with another 30 years of historical documentation available he might write a different book but I cannot see how he could write a better one. Halberstam shows how bad decisions, dishonesty, an unwillingness to face facts and sheer basic stupidity got America into a war that was lost from the start. The amazing thing that this book reveals is how so many smart, well-accomplished people, the best and the brightest of the American foreign policy and military were so incredibly wrong for so incredibly long. I wish that I had read this book a long time ago, I'm glad that I've read it now.
Rating: 5
Summary: A large and superb book focused on the origins of the war
Comment: A large-scale work focused on the origins of the war, this book was the first of its kind by far -- published in 1972, it was written without the benefit of the Pentagon Papers. It's also entirely unreferenced, which would be troubling except for the fact that its conclusions have mostly stood up to the test of time. The depth is impressive, one of the results of its large size; at about 400,000 words, it is larger than any Vietnam War history I know of. (Karnow's "Vietnam: A History," for example, is about 330,000 words.) Especially good are the unusually detailed portraits of the principal figures involved in the origins, including Bob McNamara, President Johnson, Dean Rusk, President Kennedy, Mac Bundy, and Max Taylor. It ends with Nixon's 1968 election.
Besides being a great historical resource, this book shows the amazing degree to which the problems and deceptions surrounding Vietnam were known in the late 1960's. Although many useful Vietnam histories have been published in the last five years, they add only marginally to what was known and written by Halberstam and others thirty years ago.
Rating: 4
Summary: a few warnings for younger readers
Comment: Judging by the reviews, this book appears to have seriously struck a chord with people who lived through the Vietnam era. I can imagine how in '72 when this first came out it must have been groundbreaking. But a few warnings for people who did not live through Nam reading this in the 21st century:
- This is not a history of the Vietnam war. This is a profile and a criticism of the people who got us into the war.
- No footnotes, no attribution of sources. Always a disturbing sign.
- I found his narrative style extremely annoying. He comes back to the history (events & dates) just long enough to introduce a new character and then shoots off onto a 20 page profile of said character. Again and again he does this, until I found myself going "Oh God, not another profile..."
This book is very good but I can't help but feel that Halberstam's style of writing (the moral superiority and lack of sourcing) helped plant the seeds for self-righteous liberal hacks like Michael Moore. Halberstam had the skill and intellect to pull it off, but he paved the way for a lot of the arrogant political writers we see today.
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Title: War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by David Halberstam ISBN: 0743223233 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 04 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: A Bright Shining Lie : John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan ISBN: 0679724141 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 19 September, 1989 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Fifties by DAVID HALBERSTAM ISBN: 0449909336 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 10 May, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: In Retrospect : The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Brian VanDeMark, Robert S. McNamara ISBN: 0679767495 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 19 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow ISBN: 0140265473 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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