Winners And Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, And Ruins From The Vietnam War (Paperback)

~ Emerson Gloria (Author) "At first I could not understand such advice, did not even remember it for a very long time..." (more)
Key Phrases: hoi chanh, unconditional amnesty, United States, World War, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This book is an American National Book Award winner. After covering the Vietnam war for the "New York Times", Gloria Emerson travelled across America for four years, interviewing people who fought in the war or who fought against it, those who paid little attention and others whose lives were changed by it. Her reporting on a small town in Kentucky which suffered high losses, is considered a remarkable inquiry into the meaning of war and its effects on America. Emerson also writes about the Vietnamese people with the insight that characterized her reporting during the war.

Product Details

• Paperback: 444 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. (November 17, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393309258
• ISBN-13: 978-0393309256
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,560,872 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read It Now, November 1, 2001

By	Carra R Lane (Bishop Hill, IL United States) - See all my reviews

Gloria Emerson's early loose calculation of the closing costs of Vietnam remains extraordinarily valuable. When our government leaps before it understands/examines, then insists upon continuing long after many bright people have recognized a sequence of policy errors, this is what can happen. Episodic/impressionistic, widest possible scope, home & away. Strikingly even-handed, though Emerson developed a very strong set of opinions. Wonderful book. Terrifying war/time.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Winners and Losers, February 6, 2000

By	justbells (Canada) - See all my reviews

While this book is not a military log of each and every battle on the Vietnam front, it is a very valuable book. It offers an honest, heart-felt, even heart-wrenching view of the EFFECT of the war on American, Soliders, and the Vietnamese

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Silver Stars, April 3, 2000

By	Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews

The system of rating books by the number of stars which a reader is willing to bestow is perfect for this book. In a section called "Odd Things, But Not Forgotten," the reader is thoroughly informed of how a general was awarded a silver star, how the New York Times sent a reporter named Gloria Emerson to the Awards and Decorations Section to see why the men had made up the perfect dream when they didn't have the kind of documentation normally associated with acts of valor, and how newspaper readers responded to the story. The high point for me was a poem by a draftee, which ended with the perfect attitude for a military mind. "Let me go into battle, / a hero I shall be. / I'm forty-four, I'm still alive, / and the army's mind is me." It made me glad that I served out in the bush, and not as a clerk in some headquarters.