Prisoner of the Word: A Memoir of the Vietnamese Reeducation Camps [Hardcover]

Le Huu Tri (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2001

Prisoner of the World is a recounting of Le Hu'u Tri's years in Vietnamese reeducation camps. A young officer in the South Vietnamese army in 1975, he turned himself in to the new authorities following the fall of Saigon. He believed he would be freed within a few weeks. Instead, he spent almost six years in forced-labor camps- euphemistically called "reeducation camps" - where prisoners were routinely starved and deprived of medical care, where some were shot, and they were worked beyond exhaustion. The title alludes to the author's observations on the techniques of manipulation and control the authorities used against their prisoners. Le's memoir is an important contribution to the literature on the methods and techniques of totalitarianism, particularly Communisim, and it is the only book that deals so extensivley with the Vietnamese camps. Readers of Jacques Ellul's Propaganda will recognize Prisoner of the World as illustrating Ellul's concept of internal propaganda.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Black Heron Press (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0930773608
• ISBN-13: 978-0930773601
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,541,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sad and humbling experience., January 20, 2002

By 

alainviet "alainviet" (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoner of the Word: A Memoir of the Vietnamese Reeducation Camps (Hardcover)

This book details the five-year ordeal of a former South Vietnamese officer through many reeducation camps in South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.

It includes mind numbing details of beatings, starvation, hard work in the fields and pure harassment by the guards. The most interesting part is the description of how expertly the communists manipulated the prisoners' minds. The latter were tricked into believing they would be released earlier if they worked harder. And the "two week-reeducation" became a five year ordeal.

Those who would like to understand how the communist system works should read this book. The author is to be congratulated for bringing to us a detailed description of the communists' reeducation camps.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A five year diary as a Communist Vietnamese POW, April 27, 2009

By 

Phil Lee (Minneapolis, Minn, Silicon Tundra, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoner of the Word: A Memoir of the Vietnamese Reeducation Camps (Hardcover)

To this Reviewer this book is an exhaustive detailed diary about being a Communist captive for 5 years. He was an ARVN Lt training in an Armor School in Long Thanh near Saigon. Story starts during the Fall of Saigon, April 27, 1975.

The book has 33 chapters covering a specific time, usually a month to a season. Much of it is the personal story, which is repetitious and usually concludes with one-liner "moral" at the end of each chapter.

This reads similar to and is mixture of Mao's Cultural Revolution, Red Guard, Great Leap Forward tactics and Soviet prison labor. Normal punishment and reward systems to get productive labor and prevent escape. Spread rumors to inspire hope for an illusion of quicker release.

There is no systematic examination in Vietnamese Communist re-education compared to other VN prison camps or for that matter to Chinese, Soviet and American systems.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cautionary tale of the dangers of "spin control", September 11, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoner of the Word: A Memoir of the Vietnamese Reeducation Camps (Hardcover)

Prisoner Of The Word: A Memoir Of The Vietnamese Reeducation Camps is the chilling but accurate memoir of author Le Huu Tri's years as a prisoner of Vietnamese so-called "reeducation" camps, which were actually forced labor camps in which starvation, nonexistent medical care, and execution were all too common. Yet perhaps the most insidious facet of these camps was the authorities' ruthless control of information, rumors, and lies, which were manipulated to control not only the prisoners, but the general populace. Prisoner Of The Word not only describes a part of Vietnam's modern history; it is a cautionary tale of the dangers of "spin control" in any and every government of the world. Highly recommended reading.