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Title: Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959-1969 (Part One) (Library of America) by Library of America ISBN: 1-883011-58-2 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: October, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Great articles by great reporters - but not the whole story
Comment: This volume covers the period from 1959 - 1969. This runs from roughly the beginning of American involvement (first US advisors killed) to the time public opinion moved solidly against the war. The articles included here are all of Hall of Fame caliber. The names of the reporters included read like a who's who of reporting. Almost all of these went on to huge careers and shelves full of awards. Reading the reporting included here is often chilling and terrifying and brings back a bunch of memories.
However, it is not a balanced collection. This is a collection from the side that one the public debate - the anti-war side. And that is fine. I certainly am not disparaging this volume or what is included. Just don't expect to recapture the public debate that raged in the US about the Vietnam War. This is reporting from great reporters in the field and they were largely or later moved to become strong voices against the war.
And this is print reporting (although it does include one article by Walter Cronkite). It doesn't (and can't) capture the effect the evening news reporting had on the home front. There were also big picture magazines like Life and Look that are gone now. I particularly remember an issue of Life, I think it was. It may have been Look. I am not sure. This issue included the names and faces of EVERY soldier killed or wounded that WEEK. It was pages and pages and pages of faces of young men. I was a boy then so they were just men to me. From where I sit today, however, they were just boys. All dead or maimed. It was a very powerful and the impact is cannot be captured in a book such as this. That isn't to detract from this book. It is simply that as great as this reporting was it isn't the whole story about what happened to move the public against the war.
The book includes a block of pictures of the reporters included in the book and some helpful maps of Vietnam. If you are interested in reading some great reporters writing about Vietnam at the time it was happening, this is a very fine volume. Just don't think it is all there is to know about what was said about Vietnam at the time.
Rating: 5
Summary: Nam
Comment: A test of good reporting is the feeling that you were there after you have read the last sentence. Good reporting often translates into great literature, i.e. Hemingway, Crane, Twain. Some of the writing here is near great literature.
Pick up volume one and read "Death In the Ia Drang Valley," by Specialist 4/C Smith. Smith's story is reporting at its finest. Go to Ward Just's Reconnaissance, about the Central Highlands. Then go read the one about Con Thien, and the one about Dak To. This is good reporting.
And read Michael Kerr. He is in volume two. If you have ever read his book, Dispatches, you read the short version of what is surely the best words in the best order about Vietnam. Volume two offers the extended version of that haunting book. There are chapters here found no where else. As you read you will find yourself in Khe Sahn, Hue, Phu Bai, and DaNang. This is great writing.
These two volumes are required reading for those of us who were there and for those of us who were not there. The reporting is great. The writers are all Vietnam era writers. Halberstam, Alsop, Karnow Sheehan, Fall, Arnett, Fitzgerald. Some are easy to read. Some make demands on the reader.
Read these volumes for the quality of the writing. That should always be one of the reasons why you pick up a book. The journalism is solid.
And then read for the feeling of being there. I was "in country" from 1967 to 1968. When I am reading Kerr, I am back in Phu Bai walkimg through the wire out on patrol.
The only other book that puts you there is David Douglas Duncan's War Without Heroes. And that is a book of black and white combat photographs taken at Khe Sahn and Con Thien..
I own a lot of books by The Library of America. These two volumes are among the best by that publisher.
Rating: 1
Summary: Spurious
Comment: You guessed it: It's the same leftist b.s. we were all taught in school. Please, I'm yawning already...
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Title: Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969-1975 (Part Two) (Library of America) by Library of America ISBN: 1883011590 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1944-1946 (Library of America, 78) by Library of America ISBN: 1883011051 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938-1944 (Library of America, 77) by Library of America ISBN: 1883011043 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1941-1963 (The Library of America, 137-138) by David J. Garrow, Bill Kovach, Carol Polsgrove, Of America Library ISBN: 1931082286 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: 13 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: Poems and Translations (Library of America, 144) by Ezra Pound, Richard Sieburth ISBN: 1931082413 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: 09 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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