A Rumor of War - Softcover

Philip Caputo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009917250X ISBN 13: 9780099172505

Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd, 1979

Synopsis

In March 1965, Marine Lieutnant Philip J. Caputo landed in Danang with the first ground combat unit committed to fight in Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history's ugliest wars, he returned home - physically whole, emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism shattered. A decade later, Caputo would write in A Rumor of War, 'This is simply a story about war, about the things men do in war and the things war does to them'. It is far more then that. It is, as Theodore Solotaroff wrote in the New York Times Book Review, 'the troubled conscience of America speaking passionately, truthfully, finally'. It is the book that shattered America's deliberate indifference to the fate of the men it sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam, and in the years since it was first published it has become a basic text on that war. But in the literature of war that stretches back to Homer, it has also taken its place as an esteemed classic to rank alongside All Quiet on the Western Front and The Naked and the Dead.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"A singular and marvelous work." -- The New York Times
"Compelling . . . A thoroughly honest view of what the experience of Vietnam meant to a young college graduate, a 'gung-ho' lieutenant in the marine corps who enlisted for the 'heroic experience' of war . . . It is the most eloquent statement yet on what Vietnam was for the lower echelons who had to do the dirty work." -- Seattle Times
"Heartbreaking, terrifying, and enraging . . . It will make the strongest among us weep."
-- Los Angeles Times

About the Author:

Mustered out of the Marine Corps in 1967, Philip Caputo went on to a prize-winning career as a journalist, covering the war in Beirut and the fall of Saigon before leaving the Chicago Tribune to devote himself to writing full-time. His novels are Horn of Africa, DelCorso's Gallery, Indian Country and Equation for Evil. He is also the author of a collection of novellas, Exiles, and a second volume of memoir, Means of Escape. Philip Caputo has been a contributing editor for Esquire, and has also written for the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 009917250X
• ISBN 13: 9780099172505
• Binding: Paperback