The Living and the Dead; Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War

Hendrickson, Paul

ISBN 10: 0679427619 / ISBN 13: 9780679427612

Edité par Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1996

A propos de cet article

x, 427,[9] pages. Illustrations. Note on Sources. Selected bibliography. Index. Inscribed by the author. on the half-title page. . The author explores the early life and career of Robert McNamara, through his tenure as Secretary of Defense under Lyndon Johnson. He also tells the stories of five people whose lives were deeply affected by McNamara's role in overseeing the Vietnam War: an artist who tried to assassinate McNamara, a Marine scarred by battle in Vietnam, a Quaker who immolated himself in protest of the war, a nurse who endured a traumatic tour of duty in Vietnam, and a Vietnamese man who was enlisted to fight by the United States and was then left behind when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. N° de réf. du vendeur 55948

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : The Living and the Dead; Robert McNamara and...

Éditeur : Alfred A. Knopf, New York

Date d'édition : 1996

Reliure : Hardcover

Etat : Very good

Etat de la jaquette : Very good

Signé : Signed by Author(s)

Edition : 1st Edition

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis :

Book by Hendrickson Paul

Présentation de l'éditeur:

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Finalist for the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism

"Meticulous in detail, epic in scope, psychologically sophisticated and spiritually rich, it ranks with The Best and the Brightest and All the President's Men."
--San Francisco Chronicle

More than the two presidents he served or the 58,000 soldiers who died for his policies, Robert McNamara was the official face of Vietnam, the technocrat with steel-rimmed glasses and an ironclad faith in numbers who kept insisting that the war was winnable long after he had ceased to believe it was. This brilliantly insightful, morally devastating book tells us why he believed, how he lost faith, and what his deceptions cost five of the war's witnesses and McNamara himself.

In The Living and the Dead, Paul Hendrickson juxtaposes McNamara's story with those of a wounded Marine, an Army nurse, a Vietnamese refugee, a Quaker who burned himself to death to protest the war, and an enraged artist who tried to kill the man he saw as the war's architect. The result is a book whose exhaustive research and imaginative power turn history into an act of reckoning, damning and profoundly sympathetic, impossible to put down and impossible to forget.

"A masterpiece. . . . [Hendrickson] has a gift with language that most writers can only dream about. "
--Philadelphia Inquirer

"Approaches Shakespearian tragedy."
--The New York Times Book Review