Title: The Times That Tried Men's Souls
Product review: This is probably one of the most masterful non-fiction books written in America in the past thirty-five years. It is also the best book I have read on Washington power, with the possible exception of Hedrick Smith's "The Power Game".What makes this book so distinctive is Halberstam's passion for his subject: The quagmire known as Vietnam. Rarely does one come across a writer who has not only a strong intellect, but a keen sensitivity and insight into the people who are portrayed in his pages.Since I was born in 1963, the Vietnam War to me is just a vague memory of school classmates wearing POW/MIA bracelets on their wrists. Since I lived near a major air force base, some of the bracelets worn were of the children's own fathers and uncles. This book captures an era I knew nothing about. And it shows the truly sad confluence of stale policies, rigid mindsets, blind ambition, and cruel truths of history that came together in a little known country in Southeast Asia.
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