Derived from a Kirkus review: This companion to an upcoming, 13-part public television documentary on Vietnam is a readable digest. Vietnam: A History puts events and decisions into such sharp focus that we come to understand - and make peace with - a convulsive epoch of our recent history. Originally published a companion to the Emmy-winning PBS series, Karnow's defining book is a precursor to Ken Burns's ten-part forthcoming documentary series, The Vietnam War.

Free of ideological bias, profound in its understanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with participants-French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers, and soldiers. This monumental narrative clarifies, analyzes, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of the Vietnam war. The author's central theme is that America's leaders, prompted as much by domestic politics as by global ambitions, carried the United States into Southeast Asia with little regard for the realities of the region. He was chief correspondent for the 13-hour Vietnam: A Television series, which premiered on PBS in 1983 it won six Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, a George Polk Award and a DuPont-Columbia Award. After covering Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (where he was North Africa bureau chief in 1958-59), he went to Asia, where he spent the most influential part of his career.

He then began his career in journalism as Time correspondent in Paris in 1950. After serving with the United States Army Air Forces in the China Burma India Theater during World War II, he graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in 1947 in 19 he attended the Sorbonne, and from 1948 to 1949 the Institut d'Ã tudes Politiques de Paris. He is best known for his writings on the Vietnam War. Stanley Abram Karnow (FebruJanuary 27, 2013) was an American journalist and historian.

DJ has some wear, soiling, tears and chips. Cast of Principal Characters, Notes on Sources.

Vietnam by Stanley Karnow