| Summary: | Twenty-five years after the last American troops withdrew from Vietnam, this unique two-volume anthology from the Library of America evokes a turbulent and controversial period in American history and journalism. Drawn from original newspaper and magazine reports and contemporary books, this volume along with its companion brings together the work of over eighty remarkable writers to create an unprecedented mosaic view of America's longest war and its impact on an increasingly fractured American society. The first volume traces the deepening American involvement in South Vietnam from the first deaths of American advisers in 1959 through the controversial battle of "Hamburger Hill" in 1969. Malcolm Browne, Neil Sheehan, and David Halberstam report on the guerrilla warfare of the early 1960s; Jack P. Smith, Ward Just, and Peter Arnett experience the terrors of close-range combat in the Central Highlands; Marguerite Higgins and Frances FitzGerald observe South Vietnamese politics; Jonathan Schell records the destructive effects of American firepower in Quang Ngai; Tom Wolfe captures the cool courage of navy pilots over North Vietnam. Writers who covered the bitter controversy at home are included as well-Meg Greenfield describing an early teach-in, Norman Mailer at the Pentagon March, Jeffrey Blankfort exploring the sorrowful impact of the war on a small town in Ohio. Thomas Johnson and Wallace Terry examine the changing attitudes of African-American soldiers fighting America's first fully integrated war.
Volume 1 includes interviews and reportage by Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam, Russell Baker, Meg Greenfield, Martha Gellhorn, Ward Just, Tom Wolfe, Mary McCarthy, Seymour Hersh, Francine du Plessix and others. Volume 2 includes reportage by Seymour Hersh, Francine du Plessix Gray, John Saar, Gloria Emerson, Sydney Schanberg, Flora Lewis, Peter Arnett, and others.
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