Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2020 All rights reserved. Some of them are the names of my friends.īook review. There are more than 58,000 names on the walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. South Vietnam was the wrong place to try to “contain Communism,” no matter what that might mean. The American commitment to “containing Communism” was prominent, and, I believe, mostly sincere, albeit tragically uninformed. Be prepared to acknowledge that much of what you previously believed-and thought you knew-was wrong. You should read Fire in the Lake to get the whole story as it was knowable in 1972. She makes it easier to understand why the American war effort was doomed from its earliest phase. policies and actions and ignorance in Southeast Asia. The American war in Vietnam was far from over in 1972 when FitzGerald wrote this densely researched journalistic review of U. I feel confident in guessing there wasn’t enough. I don’t know how much of an audience there was for Fire in the Lake in 1972. had hoped would end in failure.American leadership never was what we thought it was…īook review: Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnamīy Frances FitzGerald (b1940), a Pulitzer Prize winnerīoston: An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Little Brown and Company, 1972 Discusses the French conquest up to the Geneva Conference of 1954, which the U.S. How many readers remember Frances FitzGeralds Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam First published in 1972, the book was a. Contrasts the differences between the North & the South, & shows how Ho was more successful in the North rather than the South & why. view of China right up to Ho's time, was to reject Chinese political domination but adopt Chinese political culture. Writer points out that the traditional Viet. The village was modelled on the Vietnamese family, & the village served as a model for the state. This concept is carried over to the institution of the village, which figures so important in traditional Vietnamese society. For a Vietnamese, equal justice was secondary to social harmony. Writer discusses how the notion of Communism repels American intellectuals, but for Vietnam society, the notion is not so radical. Traces the development of the society from the 10th-century Chinese conquest through the organizing efforts of Ho Chi Minh in the north, & the abdication of French figurehead Bao Dai, in the south. Writer suggests that the reason for American failure in Vietnam was due to a lack of understanding of the country & its people. ANNALS OF WAR about Vietnam, Vietnamese history & Vietnamese culture.
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