Vietnam: An Epic History of a Divisive War 1945-1975. Max Hastings

      

      

       Copyright

      William Collins

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       WilliamCollinsBooks.com

      This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018

      Copyright © Max Hastings 2018

      The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Cover photograph © AP Photo/Art Greenspoon

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008132989

      Ebook Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008133009

      Version: 2018-09-24

       Dedication

      For my dear friend Rick Atkinson, who chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of American armies with an elegance, penetration and human sympathy that his fellow-historians strive to match.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       List of Illustrations

       List of Maps

       Epigraph

       Introduction

       Note on Styles Adopted in the Text

Glossary

1 Beauty and Many Beasts

       1 CLINGING TO AN EMPIRE

       2 THE VIETMINH MARCH

2 The ‘Dirty War’

       1 STEAMROLLER TYPES

       2 WASHINGTON PICKS UP THE TAB

       3 PEASANTS

3 The Fortress That Never Was

       1 WAITING FOR GIAP

       2 DISASTER BECKONS

4 Bloody Footprints

       1 QUIT – OR BOMB?

       2 ‘A TRIUMPH OF THE WILL’

       3 GENEVA

5 The Twin Tyrannies

       1 ‘A REGIME OF TERROR’

       2 ‘THE ONLY BOY WE GOT’

       3 BOOM TIME

       4 A RECALL TO ARMS

6 Some of the Way With JFK

       1 ‘THEY’RE GOING TO LOSE THEIR COUNTRY IF …’

       2 McNAMARA’S MONARCHY

       3 LE DUAN RAISES HIS STAKE

7 1963: Coffins for Two Presidents

       1 SMALL BATTLE, BIG STORY: AP BAC

       2 THE BUDDHISTS REVOLT

       3 KILLING TIME

8 The Maze

       1 ‘ENOUGH WAR FOR EVERYBODY’

       2 DODGING DECISIONS

       9 Into the Gulf

       1 LIES

       2 HAWKS ASCENDANT

       10 ‘We Are Puzzled About How to Proceed’

       1 DOWN THE TRAIL