The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

ISBN: 1631495623

Author: Boot, Max

Condition: New

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (Biography)A New York Times bestseller, this epic and elegant biography (Wall Street Journal) profoundly recasts our understanding of the Vietnam War.Praised as a superb scholarly achievement (Foreign Policy), The Road Not Taken confirms Max Boots role as a master chronicler (Washington Times) of American military affairs. Through dozens of interviews and never-before-seen documents, Boot rescues Edward Lansdale (1908-1987) from historical ignominy to restore a sense of proportion to this political Svengali, or Lawrence of Asia (The New Yorker). Boot demonstrates how Lansdale, the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greenes The Quiet American, pioneered a hearts and minds diplomacy, first in the Philippines and then in Vietnam. Bringing a tragic complexity to Lansdale and a nuanced analysis to his visionary foreign policy, Boot suggests Vietnam could have been different had we only listened.With contemporary reverberations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, The Road Not Taken is a judicious and absorbing (New York Times Book Review) biography of lasting historical consequence. 54 black and white photographs; 3 maps