Vietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. No account has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences. Many readers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an epic history of a tragic struggle.
