"A readable and penetrating account of America's tragic experience in Vietnam by one of the nation's leading diplomatic historians. Hunt brings to this account the insights of a specialist in both American and East Asian history--a combination few can match."--Michael J. Hogan, Ohio State University
"Elegant and achingly sad. This brilliant primer on the war in Vietnam is a powerful indictment of American arrogance and paternalism. Hunt engages in no diatribes, delivers no cheap shots, assigns no blame easily. Instead, by treating the Vietnamese side of the story with sensitivity and depth, he exposes the fundamental ethnocentrism of the American war planners and of traditional accounts of the war."--Piero Gleijeses, The Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies
"A tragic tale, told by a talent, full of sound and fury, and signifying quite a lot. In addition to providing a skillful and engaging account of the long escalation, though in mercifully short compass, Hunt draws attention to the right lessons."--Foreign Affairs
"Immensely valuable. Like the war itself, it 'offers no easy answers--and no simple moral judgments.'"--Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
