Portrait of the Enemy

by Doan Van Toai and David Chanoff

Book Overview

The American experience during the Vietnam conflict is universally known: the brutalization of the US fighting men, the drug abuse and the trauma. Even today the very word 'Vietnam' is too often... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394536711
• ISBN13: 9780394536712
• Release Date: September 1986
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 215 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating to hear the other perspective.

This was quite interesting and I will use a few of the interviews for my teaching of the Vietnam War in my US History class. Nice to expose my students to the "enemy".

A Major Contribution Which Fills Many Gaps

This is that rare book on Vietnam which contributes new information which is essential to understanding the war and the country. Chanoff and Toai have assembled an extraordinary set of new interviews, published reminiscences, and war-time interrogation reports with northern and southern Vietnamese participants in the decades long struggle to build a unified communist country.These are as frank and revealing a set of eyewitness interviews as anyone is ever likely to assemble. They deal honestly and painfully with the hardships of war, the combination of idealism and brutality that pervade daily life during war, and the shattered dreams of many participants during land reform, ideological purges and power grabs.I consider this one of the 15 or 20 books that belongs on everyone's list of the ten most important books written on the war. Along with books by David Marr, Hue-Tam Ho Tai and Le Ly Hayslip, I consider it one of the essential sources on Vietnam itself. There is not just the insight of personal memoirs from well-known events, there are also many major revelations about critical events in the war -- such as the Buddhist struggles and the building of the Ho Chi Minh trail.I have been teaching courses on the contry and the war for over 20 years at the University of California at San Diego. I expect to be using this book in class for many years.