Christian G. Appy

“Intenso y absorbente. Si va a comprar un solo libro sobre la guerra de Vietnam, éste es la mejor opción”. Chicago Tribune Esta es la primera historia de la Guerra de Vietnam que se escribe a partir

Few people understand the centrality of the Vietnam War to our situation as much as Christian Appy."Ken BurnsThe critically acclaimed author of Patriots offers profound insights into Vietnams place in Americas self-image. How did the Vietnam War change the way we think of ourselves as a people and a nation? Christian G. Appy, author of the widely praised oral history of the Vietnam War Patriots, now examines the relationship between the wars realities and myths and its impact on our national identity, conscience, pride, shame, popular culture, and postwar foreign policy.Drawing on a vast variety of sources from movies, songs, and novels to official documents, media coverage, and contemporary commentary, Appy offers an original interpretation of the war and its far-reaching consequences. Authoritative, insightful, sometimes surprising, and controversial, American Reckoning is a fascinating mix of political and cultural reporting that offers a completely fresh account of the meaning of the Vietnam War.

"Intense and absorbing... If you buy only one book on the Vietnam War, this is the one you want." -Chicago TribuneChristian G. Appys monumental oral history of the Vietnam War is the first work to probe the wars path through both the United States and Vietnam. These vivid testimonies of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict, from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975. Sometimes detached and reflective, often raw and emotional, they allow us to see and feel what this war meant to people literally on all sides: Americans and Vietnamese, generals and grunts, policymakers and protesters, guerrillas and CIA operatives, pilots and doctors, artists and journalists, and a variety of ordinary citizens whose lives were swept up in a cataclysm that killed three million people. By turns harrowing, inspiring, and revelatory, Patriots is not a chronicle of facts and figures but a vivid human history of the war."A gem of a book, as informative and compulsively readable as it is timely." -The Washington Post Book World

Esta es la primera historia de la Guerra de Vietnam que se escribe a partir de la experiencia vivida de los dos bandos en lucha. Reuniendo los testimonios de más de un centenar de participantes, que van desde quienes dirigian los combates, como el general norteamericano Westmoreland y el vietnamita Vo Nguyen Giap, hasta aviadores, guerrilleros o agentes de la CIA, sin olvidar las victimas civiles, y encuadrandolos dentro de una interpretacion que toma en cuenta los mas recientes resultados de la investigacion historica, Christian G. Appy ha construido un impresionante retablo de la guerra: un relato que resulta, a la vez, fascinante y estremecedor, y que desmiente muchos de los topicos que hasta hoy se venian contando. De este libro ha dicho un critico: Si usted quiere comprar un solo libro sobre la Guerra de Vietnam, este es el que necesita. Y el gran historiador Studs Terkel: De todas las obras escritas sobre la guerra de Vietnam, esta es la mas importante: el libro que algun dia habia de escribirse.Intenso y absorbente. Si va a comprar un solo libro sobre la guerra de Vietnam, esta es la mejor opcion. Chicago Tribune