Reporting Vietnam Part Two: American Journalism 1969-1975

by Milton J. Bates (Compiler)

Other authorsMarilyn Young (Compiler), Paul Miles (Compiler), Ronald H. Spector (Compiler), Lawrence Lichty (Compiler)
Hardcover, 1998

Status

Available

Publication

Library of America (1998), 857 pages

Description

First published for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, this unique two-volume anthology from the Library of America evokes a turbulent and controversial period in American history and journalism.  Reporting Vietnam Part Two: American Journalism 1969-1975, along with its companion volume, captures the bravery, fear, cruelty, suffering, anger, and sorrow of a tragic conflict. This second volume traces events from the revelation of the My Lai massacre in 1969 through the fall of Saigon in 1975. Here are Peter Kann on the ambiguities of pacification; Gloria Emerson on the South Vietnamese debacle in Laos; Donald Kirk on declining American morale; Sydney Schanberg on the fall of Phnom Penh and the victory of the Khmer Rouge; Philip Caputo, Keyes Beech, Peter Arnett, and Malcolm Browne on the last days of South Vietnam. Writers who observed the turmoil in the United States are included as well: Francine du Plessis Gray on factions within the protest movement; Michael Kinsley recounting a confrontation between Henry Kissinger and his Harvard colleagues; James Michener meticulously reconstructing the Kent State shootings; Doris Kearns listening to Lyndon Johnson's anguished recollections; Hunter S. Thompson watching veterans protest Richard Nixon's renomination. Included in full is Dispatches, journalist Michael Herr's acclaimed impressionistic memoir of his immersion in the exhilaration, dread, and sorrow of the Vietnam War. This volume contains a detailed chronology of the war, historical maps, biographical profiles of the journalists, explanatory notes, a glossary of military terms, an index, and a 32-page insert of photographs of the correspondents, many from private collections and never before seen. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member ivanfranko
A first class rendition of Vietnam reportage. Helped by including "Dispatches" by Michael Herr in full in Vol.2.
What emerges from these writers is a feeling that in war, the human being enters a new state of being. Ideological delusion, when acted out requires the soldier, the advisor, the
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politician, the victim, everyone who's close at hand to enter a new crazed mentality. A moral civilized standpoint doesn't seem to work much any more.
Because war destroys one's humanity, a survivor from this hellish state suffers agonies and fears that haunt the person, too often for a lifetime. It is heartbreaking to remember that the average age of the combatant in this devastating descent to madness was nineteen.
A masterpiece from the Library of America.
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LibraryThing member untraveller
Another superb book by LOA and the perfect companion volume to Part One, the early years. Good reporting by numerous journalists on the situation in Cambodia as well as VietNam. The only prose I did not like in this volume was the 200 page piece to end the book by Michael Herr. Twas probably stoned
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most of the time he wrote it as much of it is incomprehensible. Finished 21.07.2020.
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Language

Original language

English

Local notes

Library of America

Barcode

11889

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