One Crowded Hour (Oe): Neil Davis, Combat Cameraman [Hardcover]

Tim Bowden (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 436 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd (August 19, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002174960
• ISBN-13: 978-0002174961
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,127,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Biography of an Australian Journalist who Died too Young, September 27, 2009

By 

Ted Marks (Phippsburg, ME, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Crowded Hour (Oe): Neil Davis, Combat Cameraman (Hardcover)

This is a belated review of a biography of Neil Davis, the legendary Australian journalist who made his name as a video photographer in Southeast Asia and Africa.

The book, ONE CROWDED HOUR, NEIL DAVIS, COMBAT CAMERAMAN, 1934-1985, was published in Australia in 1987, two years after Davis's untimely death, and it has not, I believe, been published in America. It should have been, because the life story of Neil Davis describes a fabulous career that saw Davis cover major news events in the latter half of the 20th century, as both a TV cameraman and a journalist/writer.

The author of this review worked with Davis in Cambodia from 1973-75, and he holds the Australian in the highest esteem. He was not only a savvy journalist; he was truly a gentleman - a rarity amongst the foreign correspondent corps in Southeast Asia.

Davis died, tragically, on a Bangkok street in 1985 when he got caught in crossfire during one of the many coup attempts in Thailand. His death was a waste, in that it cut down the career of a journalist who was, perhaps, more plugged into the key players in the war in Vietnam and Cambodia - and later, briefly, in Africa. The book will also give some keen insights into the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Even though he faced a tragic death, we are fortunate that prior to Davis' death Tim Bowden had been planning to write Davis' biography, and he had met several times with the Australian cameraman in order to gather the material he needed to write ONE CROWDED HOUR. If you want to know what being a combat correspondent is like, then this book will more than fill the bill.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, worth reading, October 28, 2005

By 

Geoff Alexander (Bangkok) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Crowded Hour (Oe): Neil Davis, Combat Cameraman (Hardcover)

The first reviewer obviously has a bee in his bonnet about Western men and Asian women, and this appears to adversely color his or her review of a very fine book. Much of Bowden's exceptional work derives from his collecting data from Bowden's diaries and letters to his aunt, which Bowden arranges in thematically interesting chapters. There are gems, such as the description of the VC double agent on page 212 of my paperback edition (I know the agent). Overall, brilliant, insightful work by Bowden, on a remarkable character.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars some balance, August 28, 2001

By 

Brendon Ely (Tianjin China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Crowded Hour (Oe): Neil Davis, Combat Cameraman (Hardcover)

I was surprised at the lack of balance in the reviews of "One Crowd Hour". Neil Davis might have been a "typical Aussie bloke" but he was a typical Aussie bloke with lots of differences. Firstly, Davis did not share the racism of his "typical" fellow Australians: he only covered the Vietnamese troops and he said the Vietnam war was "their" war. Davis may have little to say about the Australian troops because he didn't cover the Australian troops. He only filmed the Vietnamese troops, and then the Cambodian troops, who did most of the fighting. Secondly, Davis worked for an international news agency so he was not in Vietnam to cover the Australian troops. Thirdly, to accuse Davis of not identifing with the Vietnamese and Cambodian people is plainly untrue and a smear on Davis's name. Davis refused to leave Vietnam and Cambodia when his employers wanted him out. He loved Cambodia and made that country his home. He only left Cambodia when the Khmar Rouge took over. Davis was recognized by his journalistic peers as an expert on the Vietnamese and Cambodian wars. How many cameramen write articles for magazines like the Far Eastern Economc review. After the war end, Davis remained in South East Asia. Davis greatest weakness in eyes of people like Ash Long is not his drinking with his mates or womenizing but his failure to endorse the left-wing position on the Vietnam War that meant supporting North Vietnam and the Khmar Rouge. Davis know enough about the war to be sceptical about the champions of the left. "One Crowd Hour" has become a classic of Australian biography. I recommend it because Davis was not a typical Australian: he did not show any of the racism that was SO typical of Australians in the sixties.