he faxed the request en route to class, and Springsteen's office faxed back, agreeing, letting him use the image without charge. His book Vietnam and America: A Documented History, which he co-edited with his wife Jane Franklin and Marvin Gettleman and Marilyn Young, was described by The New York Times as a "valuable anthology of crucial texts and records" which "tersely replays the bitter conflict." A reviewer in The Nation described Franklin's writing about the M.I.A. issue as using "elegant economy". Franklin believed that his students had incorrect ideas about the American involvement in Vietnam, such as that the United States lost the war because it "didn't try hard enough"; Franklin felt that his students were unaware of the extent of bomb damage. His book chronicled how the supposed "missing" American soldiers were "known to be dead" but were "kept alive for bureaucratic reasons that backfired." He described the post-war belief in still-held prisoners of war as a "manufactured issue" and criticized presidential contender Michele Bachmann for bringing up the issue as "pure opportunism." Franklin was pivotal in helping to debunk the "Missing in Action" myths. New York Times reviewer Todd Gitlin described Franklin's M.I.A. as "meticulously researched." In 2018, at the age of 85, Franklin published Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War, a history of America from the 1930s to the present, in the form of a memoir. The book takes us from the consciousness of a kid growing up during World War II, through his work as a tugboat mate on the New York waterfront during the murderous gang wars, his experience at a Strategic Air Command navigator and intelligence officer, and his subsequent decades of activism for peace and justice. Environmentalism Franklin's research about menhaden, a fish crucial in the food chain of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, helped spark a mass movement to protect them. In The Most Important Fish in the Sea, Franklin examined marine food chains and argued for the importance of menhaden. He showed that many species of fish, which humans eat, depend for their well-being on eating menhaden, and therefore their role in the food chain was vital. Franklin's analysis was an interdisciplinary study in American environmental, economic, social, political, and cultural history from the 17th into the 21st centuries. It led to the introduction of two nature conservation bills in Congress. In a review in The Washington