The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era - Softcover

Halberstam, David; Singal, Daniel Joseph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394368606 ISBN 13: 9780394368603

Publisher: Random House USA Inc, 1987

Synopsis

Halberstam's Pultizer-Prize-winning eyewitness account of the most critical political period of American involvement in Vietnam is now designed for classroom use by Daniel J. Singal. Including a new introduction and footnotes describing unfamiliar people and events, this work is lively and accessible for students. With new maps and photographs, students can visualize the crucial political events and increase their understanding of the policy errors of the early 1960s. The Making of a Quagmire captures the story of the Diem/Kennedy era, and the fundamental misconceptions that governed American policy and the South Vietnamese perspective.

About this title

Review:

Few journalists did more to educate Americans about the harsh realities of the Vietnam war than David Halberstam. The Making of a Quagmire offers numerous insights into the conflict between the American press and the U.S. government that began in those years and ultimately played a major role in the war. The book is a valuable introduction to Vietnam in the era of John F. Kennedy and Ngo Dinh Diem.--George C. Herring, University of Kentucky

As it did in 1965, Halberstam's book will provoke vigorous discussion. Readers will marvel at how the United States allowed itself to be so misled in South Vietnam and will use the book to make connections to more recent events in the Middle East.--Robert Dallek

Halberstam's wartime work will last not just because of its quality and its importance but because it established a new mode of journalism, one with which Americans are now so familiar that it's difficult to remember that someone had to invent it.--George Packer "The New Yorker "

For all the legions of books published on the Vietnam War, none surpasses one of the earliest and most prescient--David Halberstam's The Making of a Quagmire. Halberstam's shrewd observations of the complexities of Vietnamese politics and the obstacles the U.S. faced early in achieving its goals deeply inform the entire book. A brilliant study that has lost none of its power despite the history that unfolded after its publication, Halberstam's book deserves to be read again and again.--Ellen Fitzpatrick, Carpenter Professor of History, University of New Hampshire

About the Author:

David Halberstam (1934-2007) was the author of 20 books, the last 14 of which have been national best-sellers. His most recent book, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, is about the Chinese entry into the Korean War. He was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Vietnam and was a member of the elective Society of American Historians.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0394368606
• ISBN 13: 9780394368603
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 217