Vietnam

An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975

By: Max Hastings

Narrated by: Max Hastings, Peter Noble

Length: 33 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of The Secret War.

Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the US in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet Offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh’s warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.

Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom 40 died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners’ victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bar girls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas.

No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ fans know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the 21st century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.

©2018 Max Hastings (P)2018 HarperAudio

A Wonderful Book

I put the Viet Nam War behind me years ago, and now in my older years wanted to re-examine this part of our history that was central to my life and our nation's life. The book makes for painful reading; the stupidity, the deception, and the destruction displayed by all sides are almost Shakespearean. Yet, it helps put America's role in the war in a perspective that seems balanced, comprehensive, and more than instructive. Magnificent writing. A great balance between big picture and accounts of individual participants--on all sides. And a terrific reader. It was prefect for me as a thoughtful overview of the tragedy. I don't see how he could have written a better book.

Very Thorough Book About Vietnam

Excellent book starting at the end of WWII like it should to explain the Vietnam disaster. I didn't realize Vichy France and Japan played a role in the start of the three decade disaster of Vietnam. I did know Ho Chi Minh visited US Diplomats in WWII and was essentially ignored. It is unbelievable what went on in Vietnam for 10 years. Hopefully, Americans are studying books like this to understand what war really is and what the real results are. Excellent book to really understand this war.

Excellent

Max Hastings has brought into focus the history of the Vietnam war brilliantly. I finished with a great understanding of how the pieces of this war fit together from all sides.

Necessary

It’s an extraordinary story based on an amazing research on both sides of the war. Impressive material from communist archives. Must read .

Enjoyed This Book

I thought this was a great book. It gives a good balance of the high-level strategic view and down to the individual soldier’s view and everything in-between.

A staggering work

Read it and immerse yourself in this enormous tragedy that changed the latter half of the 20th century
Simply put its a brilliant book

Let Audible Know of Any Audio Issues

Much of the first half of the book was tinny and garbled, as if the stereo channels were slightly out of sync. It made many Vietnamese names impossible to make out. I switched to least compression and re-downloaded to no avail. I thought it was the headset or that this Droid phone had finally had it or was overheating, but the issue disappeared with no changes on my part. (Sep 2020)

Sir Hastings once again solicits so many viewpoints on all sides. He has helped me understand those U.S. veterans who insist we could have "won," without blaming it all on Democrats, the press, or Jane Fonda. If Tet was a turning point for the U.S. public, the ordinary NVA and VC troops were also growing weary and not only because of our airpower. Nor, despite the all Southern desertions and suicides in 1975, was the taking of Saigon a cakewalk. Unfortunately, other things necessary to have strategically won were missing in the South. Hastings defends neither My Lai, Phoenix, nor Americans who believed Ho Chi Minh a kind-hearted folk hero. By and large, he respects those U.S. soldiers who believed they were fighting for a good, achievable cause, as many did early on before U.S. society erupted--well, like it is now, weakening troop resolve from within. (Food for thought.) He's done an excellent job laying out a very complex story, and some final insights were worth the wait.

Expansive and clear sighted

Vietnam has always been a difficult war for me to study clearly because it is a symbol in so many way.Max Hastings presents a clear view with historical context and a heavy emphasis on the human story of the war.

Thorough and very interesting!

Very much enjoyed this book. Showed lives of people on both sides of the conflict. Even handed approach I thought also. Lots of first person stories too which I liked..

Important that we never forget.

The story presented here is painstaking in its details and in its grimness. There are a few bright spots in this story, but Hasting lays it all out warts and all. It's not all dark there are a few bright spots as I said.

The narration was really well done, but to be honest I was glad to see this end,.it was starting to put me into a dark place.