Synopsis
Here is the story of the "other side" of the Vietnam War--of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese--which has been largely untold until now. In this remarkable piece of oral history, the story emerges of the ordinary people of both North and South Vietnam, of the Vietcong guerrilla fighters and terrorists, North Vietnamese soldiers and cadres, monks, opposition leaders, propaganda chiefs and village secretaries. Vietnam: A Portrait of its People at War provides an account of dedication and heroism at all levels and also of the brutality and trauma faced by a people in the grip of revolution and war.
Reviews
Chanoff and Toai conducted interviews over a two-year period with Vietnamese exiles in the United States and Europe, and obtained transcripts of military interrogations of Vietcong and North Vietnamese defectors and prisoners of war. The resulting collection of first-person accounts succeeds in humanizing our former foe in a way not found in other works published in English, largely because of the wide variety of attitudes, political outlooks and the strong individuality of the voices heard. Characters include a North Vietnamese propaganda chief, a Vietcong general, a village secretary-guerrilla, a Vietcong assassin, a Buddhist opposition leader and a man who served both in the Saigon national assembly and its counterpart in Hanoi. Chanoff, who teaches at Harvard, and Toai, director of the Institute for Southeast Asian Policy Analysis at Berkeley, coauthored The Vietnamese Gulag.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Through three Asian wars within 30 years, Americans have lacked an understanding of the enemy. The recent flood of books on the Vietnam War has focused on the American side. In this important work the authors present totally absorbing vignettes of some 36 North Vietnamese, Vietcong, and Third Force adversaries through their own words. At the level of the individual rather than the regime, the enemy was not a faceless fanatic, but a human being with fears, doubts, and concerns that mingled with courage, faith, and dedication. In a sensitive afterword Chanoff speaks of the "ordinary heroism" of the Vietnamese. Highly recommended for use in college courses and for the informed public. Steven I. Levine, Sch. of International Service, American Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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