Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides
by Christian G. Appy
On This Page
Description
Christian G. Appy's oral history of the Vietnam War probes the war's path through both the United States and Vietnam. These testimonies of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict, from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975. Sometimes detached and reflective, often raw and emotional, they allow us to see and feel what this war meant to people literally on all sides -- Americans and Vietnamese, generals and grunts, policymakers and show more protesters, guerrillas and CIA operatives, pilots and doctors, artists and journalists, and a variety of ordinary citizens whose lives were swept up in a cataclysm that killed three million people. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
strathconaslung "America's Longest War" in companion with "Patriots" will give the reader a factual, accurate background. When reading "Patriots," one has to be aware of political, social, cultural, and religious bias of the speakers. "America's Longest War" offers itself as a more-or-less unbiased resource of factual information about the history of the Vietnam War.
Member Reviews
I've very little to compare it to in the way of Vietnam history, but maybe I enjoyed it all the more for that.
I've always been fascinated by the subject - the greatest superpower in the world defeated, and war fading in its role as the ultimate arbiter of international power. It's easy to pass over the lengthy, complex history behind it though. Appy, by interviewing people on all sides and then structuring the results brilliantly, does justice to the shades of grey, the horror, the legacies and much more besides. The editorial work which precedes the chronologically ordered sections, and accompanies the themed subsections, is comprehensive and objective (most of the time) without distracting from the raw material of the interviews show more themselves.
Slightly overlong? Weighted in favour of American testimony? I don't believe either was avoidable. Superb. show less
I've always been fascinated by the subject - the greatest superpower in the world defeated, and war fading in its role as the ultimate arbiter of international power. It's easy to pass over the lengthy, complex history behind it though. Appy, by interviewing people on all sides and then structuring the results brilliantly, does justice to the shades of grey, the horror, the legacies and much more besides. The editorial work which precedes the chronologically ordered sections, and accompanies the themed subsections, is comprehensive and objective (most of the time) without distracting from the raw material of the interviews show more themselves.
Slightly overlong? Weighted in favour of American testimony? I don't believe either was avoidable. Superb. show less
I found this work extremely informative, stimulating, and moving. Though it is 600 pages, I felt like it moved rather quickly. if there is any single book to read about the Vietnam war, this is it. It is one of the best non-fiction works I have ever read--and I've read quite a few.
An amazing history read.
X Oriental History
Esta es la primera historia de la Guerra de Vietnam que se escribe a partir de la experiencia vivida de los dos bandos en lucha. Reuniendo los testimonios de más de un centenar de participantes, que van desde quienes dirigían los combates, como el general norteamericano Westmoreland y el vietnamita Vo Nguyen Giap, hasta aviadores, guerrilleros o agentes de la CIA, sin olvidar las víctimas civiles, y encuadrándolos dentro de una interpretación que toma en cuenta los más recientes resultados de la investigación histórica, Christian G. Appy ha construido un impresionante retablo de la guerra: un relato que resulta, a la vez, fascinante y estremecedor, y que desmiente muchos de los tópicos que hasta hoy se venían contando. De este show more libro ha dicho un crítico: "Si usted quiere comprar un solo libro sobre la Guerra de Vietnam, éste es el que necesita". Y el gran historiador Studs Terkel: "De todas las obras escritas sobre la Guerra de Vietnam, ésta es la más importante: el libro que algún día había de escribirse". show less
Jul 21, 2022Spanish
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Books Cited in Wasteland by W. Scott Poole
120 works; 1 member
Author Information
4+ Works 571 Members
Christian G. Appy has taught at both Harvard and MIT, where he was an associate professor of history.
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2003
- Dedication
- For Shirley K. Appy
- Blurbers
- Terkel, Studs; DeMille, Nelson; Young, Marilyn; Zinn, Howard
- Disambiguation notice
- US title: Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from all Sides
UK title: Vietnam: The Definitive Oral History, Told from all Sides
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 959.70430922 — History & geography History of Asia Southeast Asia: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam Vietnam 1949- 1961–1975 Vietnamese War
- LCC
- DS559.5 .A66 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Asia History of Asia Southeast Asia French Indochina Vietnam. Annam Vietnamese Conflict
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 327
- Popularity
- 96,868
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (4.36)
- Languages
- English, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 4
