An edition of Valley of death (2010)

Valley of death

the tragedy at Dien Bien Phu that led America into the Vietnam War

1st ed.
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Last edited by Tom Morris
December 15, 2023 | History
An edition of Valley of death (2010)

Valley of death

the tragedy at Dien Bien Phu that led America into the Vietnam War

1st ed.
  • 0 Ratings
  • 1 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 0 Have read

Pulitzer Prize--winning author Ted Morgan has now written a rich and definitive account of the fateful battle that ended French rule in Indochina--and led inexorably to America's Vietnam War. Dien Bien Phu was a remote valley on the border of Laos along a simple rural trade route. But it would also be where a great European power fell to an underestimated insurgent army and lost control of a crucial colony. Valley of Death is the untold story of the 1954 battle that, in six weeks, changed the course of history.A veteran of the French Army, Ted Morgan has made use of exclusive firsthand reports to create the most complete and dramatic telling of the conflict ever written. Here is the history of the Vietminh liberation movement's rebellion against French occupation after World War II and its growth as an adversary, eventually backed by Communist China. Here too is the ill-fated French plan to build a base in Dien Bien Phu and draw the Vietminh into a debilitating defeat--which instead led to the Europeans being encircled in the surrounding hills, besieged by heavy artillery, overrun, and defeated. Making expert use of recently unearthed or released information, Morgan reveals the inner workings of the American effort to aid France, with Eisenhower secretly disdainful of the French effort and prophetically worried that "no military victory was possible in that type of theater." Morgan paints indelible portraits of all the major players, from Henri Navarre, head of the French Union forces, a rigid professional unprepared for an enemy fortified by rice carried on bicycles, to his commander, General Christian de Castries, a privileged, miscast cavalry officer, and General Vo Nguyen Giap, a master of guerrilla warfare working out of a one-room hut on the side of a hill. Most devastatingly, Morgan sets the stage for the Vietnam quagmire that was to come. Superbly researched and powerfully written, Valley of Death is the crowning achievement of an author whose work has always been as compulsively readable as it is important.From the Hardcover edition.

Publish Date
Publisher
Random House
Language
English
Pages
722

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Dien Bien Phu
Dien Bien Phu: a tragedy in five acts
2010, Random House
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: Valley of death
Cover of: Valley of death
Cover of: Valley of Death
Cover of: Valley of Death
Valley of Death
2010, Random House Publishing Group
Electronic resource in English

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Book Details


Published in

New York

Table of Contents

Act I: The
first partition of Vietnam -- -- Act II: The
Colonial War becomes a proxy war -- -- Act III:
Navarre takes command -- -- Act IV: The
battle -- -- Act V:
Diplomacy, defeat, and captivity.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. [645]-692) and index.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
959.704/142
Library of Congress
DS553.3.D5 M665 2010

The Physical Object

Pagination
xxii, 722 p., [16] p. of plates :
Number of pages
722

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL24476245M
Internet Archive
valleyofdeathtra0000morg
ISBN 10
1400066646
ISBN 13
9781400066643
LCCN
2009019714
OCLC/WorldCat
340961419

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December 15, 2023 Edited by Tom Morris Merge works
December 15, 2023 Edited by Tom Morris Merge works
October 27, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
November 30, 2010 Created by ImportBot initial import