David Halberstam (1934–2007)

This well-written book uses a classic confrontation between two teams, a tottering dynasty and a team that featured a more balanced mix of youth and experience, to not only tell a great baseball yarn but also give insight into the social changes in the '60s, especially the impact of the civil rights movement. For me it brought back fond memories, since the Cardinals were my favorite team when I was young, and the Yankees were the local team. Especially well-done are the vignettes of my of show more those involved, such as Curt Flood, Buck O'Neil, and Roger Maris. Highly recommended, not just for baseball fans. show less

I doubt I’ll finish this book. A lot of people seem to love Halberstam, and this book’s been much ballyhooed, but I’ve rarely enjoyed history written by journalists. This book reminds me why: it often reads like an extraordinarily drawn-out journalistic “lead” (730 pages!), it’s full of smarminess and jargon, action-packed soldier’s-eye perspective (i.e., the good guys), very little careful analysis or thoughtful reflection or genuine insight, and apparently little or no show more original research. I suppose that’s what real historians are for, and I suppose we’ll have to wait for one to write a definitive, popular history of this war. The book’s also much more about how MacArthur was a cement-head than it is about the war, and Halberstam relies more on snide comments than on facts and arguments to make his case against MacArthur, which tells me more about Halberstam than MacArthur. At least that’s my take from the portion I’ve read. I’d been told it’s a great book, but what a disappointment. show less

The Making of a Quagmire is an absolutely heartbreaking look, a clear-eyed examination of the failures of the Vietnam War that came out just a little too late to make a difference. Halberstam drew on his experience as a reporter to chart in detail three related problems.

The first was the government of Ngo Dinh Diem: isolated, corrupt, paranoid, Diem and his brother and sister-in-law the Nhus were the rotting head of South Vietnamese politics. Everything was cast through the lens of personal show more loyalty and palace intrigue. At one point, there were 13 separate and warring secret police factions. Competent men who told the truth were punished, corrupt toadies rewarded. Even as American aid and advice flowed in, it was absorbed by the infinite avarice of the South Vietnamese ruling class, rather than the peasants who were the center of gravity of the war.

The second side was the War in the Delta, and the related propaganda war on the American home front. ARVN units lacked the leadership to pursue and destroy Viet Cong forces, as commanders who lost troops were sacked. The Strategic Hamlet program was a twisted joke of forced relocation against a profoundly place-based culture. Meanwhile, General Harkins at MACV and various figures in the State department were feeding back the same optimistic and fundamentally false stats. Halberstam and the other reporters were ordered to get on the team, or get out.

The final bit is the Buddhist Crisis and the coup that depose Diem and the Nhus in 1963. Through an escalating series of missteps, the Diem government forced a showdown with the last vestige of independent civil society, the Buddhist masses. As protests rocked the streets, the CIA orchestrated a coup that brought down Diem, and replaced him with a rotating set of empty suits.

As Halberstam demonstrates again and again, American diplomacy was simply incapable of meaningfully changing the political culture of South Vietnam. New technological weapons like helicopters and APCs could provide a temporary advantage, but couldn't alter the fundamental dynamics of peasant political war. This book, written post '63 and published in 1965, predicted exactly what actually happened with the escalation. It seems like no one in power read it, and they certainly failed to understand its lessons. show less

את ספרו של הלברסטם על ויאטנם קראתי לפני שנים רבות ואהבתי מאוד. את הספר הזה, על מלחמת קוריאה קראתי בעניין רב ואהבתי עוד יותר כי למדתי ממנו המון. בהתחשב בזה שעיסוקי בחצי השני של חיי היה מחקרים צבאיים זו בושה ממש שלא קראתי ולא ידעתי כלום על מלחמת קוריאה. הספר קצת מסביר למה. על כל show more פנים המלחמה עצמה והניתוח של הלברסתם הרבה יותר רלוונטי לנו ומלא לקחים מרתקים מאשר העיסוק הבלתי פוסק במלחמת העולם השנייה, ברומל ובמלחמת יום כיפור. עמדתו המוסרית החזקה ויכולת הכתיבה המרתקת של המחבר רק מוסיפים לעניין. הקדשתי לספר את הלילות של קיץ 2014 והוא הוסיף טעם לחיי הדי עלובים בקיץ הזה. show less