Reporting Vietnam Part Two: American Journalism 1969-1975 [Hardcover]

Milton J. Bates (Compiler), Lawrence Lichty (Compiler), Paul Miles (Compiler), Ronald H. Spector (Compiler), Marilyn Young (Compiler)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the predawn morning of May 9, 1970, Richard Nixon left the White House and went to the Lincoln Memorial to speak with a handful of antiwar protesters, most of them college students. The nervous president, who, an assistant later said, "wanted to know what they thought," and the awed students talked amiably for a time, and then all concerned went about their business, Nixon conducting a war, the students trying to end it. So reported Dan Oberdorfer for the Washington Post in one of the dozens of stories, profiles, articles, and dispatches collected in this volume of Vietnam War-era journalism, the second of two content-packed books in a Library of America set. Among the many highlights of the second volume are reports by New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg (of The Killing Fields fame) on the deadly aftermath of the American invasion of Cambodia; Seymour Hersh's coverage of the My Lai massacre, in which American soldiers under the command of Lt. William Calley killed 109 South Vietnamese civilians; U.S. Senator John McCain's account for U.S. News and World Report of his six years as a prisoner of war; and, for a weird home-front spin, Hunter S. Thompson's hallucinogen-fueled reportage from the 1972 Democratic National Convention. The complete text of Michael Herr's Dispatches, an influential and estimable book, is included, as well. Students of Vietnam War history will find this and its companion volume to be essential sources. --Gregory McNamee

From Library Journal

One of the few achievements of the long Vietnam conflict seems to have been its reporting, as distinct in its own way as the World War II stories of Ernie Pyle and A.J. Liebling. The Vietnam correspondents overcame the official "credibility gap" with a journalistic style that could be cool and defiantly factual, or personal, or sometimes exuberantly paranoid, echoing the soldiers themselves. The style develops as you read these two marvelous volumes: the early news accounts of advisers give way by mid-decade to a mission confusion and a growing respect for the underestimated Vietcong ("We used to call the enemy Victor Charlie. But now we call him Charles. Mr. Charles."). After the 1968 Tet Offensive, a more personal, sardonic voice emerges to match the bitter experience. In all, 80 writers survey the complex scene from all angles?from Don Moser's terrific anatomy of a 1968 guerrilla bombing to first-person accounts by POWs like John McCain, while Norman Mailer watches the street battles waged back home. Not everything here is literature, but the average is high. The collection concludes with Michael Herr's masterly, jungle-weary memoir, "Dispatches." Highly recommended for history, journalism, and literature collections.?Nathan Ward, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 857 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883011590
• ISBN-13: 978-1883011598
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #432,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific Articles - but don't stop here!, March 10, 2004

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reporting Vietnam Part Two: American Journalism 1969-1975 (Hardcover)

This very valuable compilation of historically important news articles and its companion (Part One) should be on the shelf of every person who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the Vietnam War. I can't review the articles contained, but know that there are many important pieces. Some of them are the Doris Kearns article on LBJ, John McCain's article on his captivity, Michael Kinsley on Kissinger and Harvard, several on the various incursions in countries neighboring Vietnam, and several on the fall of South Vietnam.

Some of the other famous inclusions are Seymour Hersh on My Lai and James Michener on Kent State, and Stewart Alsop on how the draft was implemented expressed America's Class System. There are many more.

But as I said about Part One, you will also need to read other things. This collection really only represents one side of the debate. At the time it was not as one sided as everyone remembers now. There really was support for the war in the population. Yes, it declined as time passed, but even today many feel that we lost more because we mishandled things more than because the war was wrong. However, that is neither here nor there for this collection. It is a terrific collection. My point is that you can't know the war and how it affected America without reading these articles. But you also can't know its full effects without reading more than these articles.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For students of the era, a valuable compilation of sources., February 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Reporting Vietnam Part Two: American Journalism 1969-1975 (Hardcover)

Students of history must be extremely grateful to the editors of REPORTING VIETNAM for bringing together so many classic, insightful accounts of the war. Most interesting, to my mind, are the reports from Vietnam itself, but the complicated situation at home is explored, as well. One particular story, Specialist 4/C Jack P. Smith's report on battle in the Ia Drang Valley, is one of the most dramatic expositions of combat I have read. Tom Wolfe, Neil Sheehan, Stanley Karnow, David Halberstam, Homer Bigart, and Bernard Fall also stand out. These two volumes are absolutely first-rate, and are sure to add measurably to our remembrance of the war.

7 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars SPURIOUS, April 23, 2001

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reporting Vietnam Part Two: American Journalism 1969-1975 (Hardcover)

You guessed it: It's the same leftist b.s. we were all taught in school. Please, I'm already almost asleep...spare me these tired old lies.