Book Description
Riveting stories of aerial combat over Vietnam and candid commentary on the doomed Rolling Thunder campaign Ed Rasimus straps the reader into the cockpit of an F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber, hurtling through the MiG-filled skies over North Vietnam, and then fast and low into the teeth of the enemy's ferocious air defenses—with less than a 50-50 chance of surviving. The most engaging writing ever published about the Rolling Thunder campaign and the war in the North, When Thunder Rolled balances fist-gnawing action with the horror and sorrow of modern aerial combat.
More than 300 F-105s were lost in the campaign because the Air Force brought the wrong strategy, disastrous tactics, and an ill-suited aircraft. A Cold War nuke sled, the Thunderchief was as much the pilots' enemy as the North Vietnamese and LBJ's war planners. Rasimus spares none of the outrage he experienced 35 years ago in this astute, surgical strike on Washington's deadly arrogance and inflexibility.
The first account by a junior officer serving at the height of the campaign, the book breaks the unspoken vow of secrecy surrounding a new pilot's psychological gauntlet of fear. It's a moving testament to those who survived and those who paid the price of honor.
Customer Reviews:
Simply the Best!.......2007-07-24
What a great book! I agree that this is the best of the F-105 books about combat during Rolling Thunder. Such detail! Ras explains everything so well and puts it in words that non-pilots can understand. He even takes you on R&R to a Bangkok niteclub to get a "massage" ;-) The difference between a fighter-pilot and a pilot of fighters is explained. I was at Takhli, the other F-105 base in Thailand, and I remember the Wild Weasel/Iron Hand "F" models. The initial group was sent in and shot down. Then another batch was sent in and shot down. I believe there were five or six airplanes in each group. During that initial period, the crewmembers of F-105F (Weasels)were virtually assured of death or capture. What a slaughter.
I loved the noise of that beautiful bird when afterburner with water injection kicked in. Not to mention the noise when a pilot returned after his 100th mission and went "supersonic" right on the deck. Awesome!!!! Also described in the book was the practice of burning off fuel with the speed brakes open and the afterburner on. I saw this on another 100 mission bird going low and slow with the "finger" extended in a pass just above the runway. This book brings back memories of that. In the meantime, back in the "world" (US)Hippies were coming on the scene. It was a shock to me and many others returning. And, by the way, so much for the "domino theory" - Thailand is still there.
GREAT STORY OF COURAGE, VIOLENCE AND INTELLECTUALLY CORRUPT LEADERSHIP.......2007-02-18
As a story of courage and combat flying this book sits near the top of the list. Daily missions into the heart of a well defended N Vietnam, flying against targets selected in DC by those with no combat flying experience, training in tactics of successful air campaigns, appreciation for those who did and with the even greater corruption of a lack of commitment.
Somehow Rasimus and his fellow pilots keep getting up after sleepless nights, getting the brief and launching missions into North Vietnam. It is sad to hear of the lives lost dumping bombs on "suspected truck parks" and other secondary targets.
The author was one of those for whom successful completion of 100 missions over N Vietnam was improbable. One wonders how our nation produces those with the skill and courage to fly these missions day after day. Add to the burden the knowledge that far too often the missions were flown against insignificant targets while truly valuable targets were off limits.
The author was blessed with the skills of a fighter pilot and the writing skills normally associated with those sedentary pursuits of a writing career.
Highly recommended.
Gut Gripping.......2007-02-08
I experienced what it was like to be a pilot flying over Vietnam, not sure if I would return after todays sortie. Courage comes in many forms.
Brilliant Thud memoire.......2006-11-15
The F-105 is a most fascinating aircraft. A superb cold-war design; it was meant to be a sort of man-guided supersonic cruise missile for delivery of nuclear weapons to tactical targets in the european theater. It was, of course, never used for this purpose, but was instead put to a use in the air war over Vietnam. The Thud was never meant to be a precision dive bomber, or to pass through heavily defended areas at subsonic speeds. All the same, politicians dictated this use (and of course went looking for someone besides themselves to blame when their "top fighter-bomber" started getting shot down in heroic quantity; so many were shot down, there weren't enough seasoned men to continue to fly them. They were shot down in so many myriads, fresh out of pilot school fighter-bomber jocks, or long grounded middle-aged desk jockies would be put directly into combat (where they would often be shot down).
The men who flew this jet were, as the cliche goes, a special breed of heroes. Unlike, say, fighter pilots or B-52 pilots, they faced almost certain death, or horrible imprisonment. Their survival rate was comparable to that of the B-17 tailgunner over Germany in WW-2; very low indeed. Oftentimes their missions were secret in nature, so the government couldn't even acknowledge that the Thud had been shot down and work for the release of the pilot.
Major Rasimus' memoire takes place at a crucial escalation in the war; in 1966. The Johnson administration decided to escalate the war by "sending messages" to the North Vietnamese via the use of bombing as a psychological and diplomatic tool. The hare-brained scheme was that, by bombing one thing, and not another, the NVA would be trained, like a pet dog is trained with a rolled up newspaper. The idea was ridiculous, and of course didn't work.
Rasimus was one of those unsung heroes who, fresh out of pilot school, grew enormous handlebar moustaches to protect them from evil on their impossible missions. He tells the tales of the base dog, Roscoe, and of various of his team, and those who came after. You can practically smell the oil on the tarmac, and the blackpowder charges which combat-started the '105's engines. While americans would rather forget the war in Vietnam, I can't forget the courage of these men who fought in these insane supersonic contraptions. May their spirit inspire a new generation of warriors. Thanks Ed; for your service and your great book!
The single seat F-105 was a DIVE BOMBER, not a fighter plane.......2006-10-25
This is a fairly interesting read, and describes in excellent detail what it was like to be an F-105 pilot during the early stages of the Vietnam War.
As a kid growing up during the later years of the Vietnam War, I remember coming across mention of the use of F-105s earlier in the war. I was always fascinated by the sleek, sinister, and powerful look of the F-105, and wondered why it had been withdrawn from combat in Vietnam. The reasons that were given usually implied that the F-105s were somehow deficient, and that the F-4 Phantoms and A-7 Corsairs that replaced them were better. How the heck the fat, stubby, and subsonic A-7 Corsair could be an improvement on the evil-looking, supersonic F-105 was just beyond my comprehension at the time.
And so the great revelation in Ed Rasimus's book is that the problem with the single seat F-105s in Vietnam was that they were used as simple dive bombers (for the purposes of this review, I am ignoring the fact that the two-seat F-105s were used in the Wild Weasle role).
That's right - the single seat F-105 in Vietnam was not a fighter plane - it was a dive bomber.
For all of its multi-million dollar cost, advanced technology, and supersonic speed, the only bombing technique that could be used by the F-105s in Vietnam was the exact same as the dive bombers of World War II - e.g. the German Stuka, the Japanese Val, and the American SBD Dauntless.
This method required the pilot to dive close in to the target and visually line up the target in a dive bombing sight before releasing the bombs. This meant of course, that the aircraft would have to fly through a wall of anti-aircraft fire in order to deliver the bombs.
Thus the heavy losses. A total of only 833 F-105s of all types were produced. 610 were the single seat F-105D version that was used for Operation Rolling Thunder. 283 of the F-105Ds were shot down in combat, with another 52 lost to other causes.
And so the F-105 was withdrawn simply because over half of the available aircraft had been destroyed and there were not enough left to continue fighting the war with them.
The F-105 was expensive because it was supersonic. It was supersonic because its original mission was to be a nuclear bomber against the Soviets. It was designed to fly in low and fast under the radar deep into Soviet territory and deliver a nuclear bomb. Nuclear bombing did not require precision bombing guidance or targeting equipment, and so the F-105 had none, hence the reversion to the old dive bombing techniques of WWII in order for it to deliver conventional bombs.
The dive bombers of WWII were also shot down in great numbers, but they were dirt cheap by comparison, and thousands were manufactured - they were truly expendable. And at the time, dive bombing was really the only method to accomplish precision bombing of difficult-to-hit high value targets.
The F-105s, and the lives of the pilots, should not have been expended so casually in a role for which the plane was poorly suited, but such was the mindless brute force thinking of the US military at the time of the Vietnam War.
And this is why the A-7 Corsair was considered an improvement - it was specifically designed to address the deficiencies of the F-105 as a ground attack aircraft. The Corsair was built to be cheap (some 1,569 were built) and have a long range while carrying large bomb loads, which meant that it would be subsonic (flying over Vietnam did not require supersonic speed and bombing runs were always done at subsonic speeds). Most importantly, the Corsair was built with an advanced bomb targeting system that allowed it to release its bombs at a considerably greater stand-off distance than the F-105, thus avoiding having to fly throught the walls of flak. Far fewer Corsairs were shot down in Vietnam as a result.
Ultimately, the development of the laser and TV guided and GPS guided bombs and missiles, would allow for precision bombing at even greater stand-off distances.
Anyway, I came to most of these insights only with the help of some additional reading outside of this book. Rasimus unfortunately never steps back to ask how and why the F-105 came to be used in Vietnam, nor does he explain in detail why the F-105 had to revert back to dive bombing. And so I took off one star for what is otherwise a very good book.
Book Description
Dan T. Carter's When the War Was Over is a social and political history of the two years following the surrender of the Confederacy--the so-called period of Presidential Reconstruction when the South, under the watchful gaze of Congress and the Union army, attempted to rebuild its shattered society and economic structure. Working primarily from rich manuscript sources, Carter draws a vivid portrait of the political leaders who emerged after the war, a diverse group of men--former loyalists as well as a few mildly repentant fire-eaters--who in some cases genuinely sought to find a place in southern society for the newly emancipated slaves, but who in many other cases merely sought to redesign the boundaries of black servitude. Carter finds that as a group the politicians who emerged in the post-war South failed critically in the test of their leadership. Not only were they unable to construct a realistic program for the region's recovery--a failure rooted in their stubborn refusal to accept the full consequences of emancipation--but their actions also served to exacerbate rather than allay the fears and apprehensions of the victorious North. Even so, Carter reveals, these leaders were not the monsters that many scholars have suggested they were, and it is misleading to dismiss them as racists and political incompetents. In important ways, they represented the most constructive, creative, and imaginative response that the white South, overwhelmed with defeat and social chaos, had to offer in 1865 and 1866. Out of their efforts would come the New South movement and, with it, the final downfall of the plantation system and the beginnings of social justice for the freed slaves.
Customer Reviews:
A distant mirror..........2001-07-05
This book focuses on a neglected chapter of reconstrution, the period of "presidential recontruction" which preceded "congressional" or "radical recontruction." Carter gives a detailed picture based almost entirely on primary sources of the south immediately after the civil war and the hosts of dilemmas that confront both the region and the nation as a whole. In the process, Carter gives the most sympathetic picture of southern conservatives who lead reconstruction efforts since the school of Dunning, perhaps since Dunning himself. In contrast to the characterization of them being unreconstructed rebels, Carter illustrates that while many of them were confederates, most were reluctant confederates who either opposed secession until after the election of Lincoln or until their states seceded. (Contrary to unionist myth making at the time, the bulk of white southerners were not "straight-sect" unionists, oppressed by a miniscule "slavocracy." After war's end there was just not enough of them to reestablish elected government.)
Indeed this book it almost a companion piece to Croft's RELUCTANT CONFEDERATES, as most of these "conservatives" were old whigs and constitutional unionist, just as Croft's subjects, who were conscious of the south's backwardness before the war and dreamed of south with manufacturing, infrastructure, diversified agriculture, and public education. To all advocates of the "failure of southern leadership" to explain everything that's gone wrong with the region since antebellum, Carter makes a compelling case, that these were the best, most far sighted men the south could have chosen.
But in Carter's book, this is almost to damn them with faint praise for as a group they are blinkered by notions of negro inequality, "the sanctity of debt", and a positive horror of confiscation. As the south refuses to be suitably "penitent" for their past sins of slavery and secession as well as enacting "black codes" that, at best, make freedmen "wards of the state" and less than truly free, the north becomes more open-ended in their demands for re-admission to the union. Carter's "old whigs" end up being overcome, as "reasonable, moderate" men often do, by inexorable events, losing support in the south *and* the north.
Along the way Carter illustrates the collapse of social order, familiar to any observer of South Africa after aparthied or Russia after communism, interracial conflict, especially fears of an black insurrection to confiscate land, the debate over "wartime debts," strangely pertinent today with the issue of "third world debt," not to mention the difficult (and not wholly successful) transition from slave labor to free labor, which ultimately results in the tenant/sharecropping system. In sum this book presents what Barabara Tuchman would call "a distant mirror", not with contemporary U.S. but the *world* at the turn of the millenium.
Carter writes excellently and as mentioned above depends heavily on primary materials. This does however bias the books perceptions toward the perceptions of conservatives, the "mobs" of white southerns demanding debt relief or the unionist who rather liked the idea of confiscation of plantation lands, have little or no voice in the debate. (They left little in the way of personal letters or published opinion, and even less that found its way into a university collection.) Hence in his conclusion, Carter glumly writes that while their were options "not all things were possible." Without a doubt, but by seeing things through elite southerners eyes, Carter seems to limit the range of possibilities to what was acceptable to *them.*
Perhaps, political theorists and historians expect too much from leaders. Perhaps at this time the wisest course was one, unthinkable to the old "whigs" but endorsed by a nameless north GA farmer after reconstruction. "We could've tuk the land. Split it. Gi'n some to the [freedmen], 'n' some to me 'n' t'other union fellers." (Quoted in McMath's AMERICAN POPULISM)
A program of debt relief, land re-distribution (to whites and blacks alike), public education, and federal investment in infrastructure (like that promised by the Hayes administration as part of the compromise of 1877, but never enacted) would have gone a long way to both "binding up the wounds" *and* guaranteeing equal rights for african americans. But that's hindsight speaking...
Average customer rating:
- Excellent way to understand history
- Fiction or Non- Fiction???????????????????????????
- Tragic View of Confederate Life
- Tragic Tale of a Civil War Teen
- Masterful
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When Will This Cruel War Be Over?: The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson, Gordonsville, Virginia, 1864 (Dear America Series)
Barry Denenberg
Manufacturer: Scholastic
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A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, Mayflower 1620 (Dear America Series)
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ASIN: 0439555175 |
Customer Reviews:
Excellent way to understand history.......2007-05-12
My ESL student has read this book about the Civil War from a Southern viewpoint. She found it to be very sad, but enlightening. I consider all the books in the Dear Ameria Series to be worthwhile.
Fiction or Non- Fiction???????????????????????????.......2006-10-07
When does one really know when one has before them a work of fiction before journeying into the bowels of the work? Denenberg claims some 175 books on the civil war were read for his research, and I wonder how many of those books did he enter into with a sense he was reading the truth, rather than lies perpetrated by some devious soul bent on purveying a message of deceit? There is not one iota of information on Scholastic's cover of "When Will This Cruel War Be Over? The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson", to remotely infer this as a work of fiction. As dozens, maybe hundreds, maybe even thousands of students, teachers, and adults across the world read this title and empathize with young Emma Simpson, they are astounded when they get to the size 6 font on the very last page, 157, lo and behold the journey just completed was a deceptive, emotional diatribe, with no apologies! Maybe in the future, both Scholastic and Denenberg will alert their readers to the truth!
Tragic View of Confederate Life.......2006-06-02
I really like this book! I wasn't sure if Dear America could successfully write a Confederate diary, but they did! The short entries didn't bother me; they seemed more realistic than the long, letter-like entries characterizing many Dear Americas. Also, the story was a lot sadder than most Dear Americas, beginning with a death and continuing with many more during the book. Emma is quiet and religious, unlike most of today's historical heroines, and her story opened my mind to the challenges of the Civil War on Southern families.
Tragic Tale of a Civil War Teen.......2006-01-24
When Will This Cruel War Be Over? is the tragic tale in diary form of a wealthy southern girl living in Civil War times. Emma loses her brother and uncle early on in the war, and is forsed to live without her father and the boy she loves for the duration of the war. Her ill mother dies, and just as things seem unable to get any worse, Emma's home is taken over my Union soldiers. She and her cousin and aunt or confined to one room, where she must live until the troops have finnished their business there. I highly reccomend this to any historical fiction or civil war reader.
Masterful.......2005-04-25
When Will This Cruel War Be Over is one of my favorite Dear America books. It talks about all the sacrifices and struggles 14-year old Emma Simpson had to go through in Gordonsville, Virgina in the middle of the Civil War. I LOVE this book because it shows the different view of the Civil War, the one that most people don't write about-the Confederate version. This book is SO unpredictable, it will have you thirsting for more by the end of it. BUY THIS BOOK!
Average customer rating:
- Character-driven, slightly implausible, historical fiction
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When This Cruel War Is Over: A Novel of the Civil War
Thomas Fleming
Manufacturer: Forge Books
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ASIN: 0312872046 |
Book Description
They called themselves Sons of Liberty -- a revolutionary conspiracy that intended to form a new confederacy in the American heartland -- and put an end to the American Civil War. Backed by the South, the Sons launch guerilla attacks against Union troops. The year is 1864, the place Indiana and Kentucky. A time of ruthless censorship, conscription, and a seemingly endless war that has left a half a million Americans dead. Union Major Paul Stapleton falls in love with Janet Todd, courier and evangelist for the Sons of Liberty. Another admirer, Colonel Adam Jameson, readies his Confederate cavalry division to support the Sons' revolt. The battle for the future of America is about to begin.
Customer Reviews:
Character-driven, slightly implausible, historical fiction.......2001-08-21
Fleming is trying to write character-driven "literary" historical fiction here, and he oversteps his ability somewhat. The problems and motivations of the characters -- primarily Stapleton, the Union officer torn between two sides; his Rebel and proto-feminist "adventuress" fiancee; and the one-armed Colonel Gentry; are clearly carefully thought out. However, I found the overall premise, that of a giant Copperhead conspiracy to make the Midwest secede from the Union, improbable; though the note at the back of the book says it is historically accurate, I did not find this to ring true. Likewise, Gentry's letters, though supposedly taken from nineteenth century originals, do not sound period. Overall, the author clearly put a good deal of effort into the book, but it is a type of book which requires interesting and fresh use of language to succeed, and this is where he falls short of the mark. The writing here is mundane and somewhat flat, despite efforts at "literary" language. The book is also rather heavy on character interactions and "telling" how characters feel, while comparatively light on real action. The author makes the common error of introducing rather badly recreated historical characters from Davis to Booth. I wouldn't call the book an utter failure, but I found myself getting bored 3/4 of the way through.
Product Description
Science-Fiction
Customer Reviews:
A Collection From The Golden Age.......2005-02-26
Another good collection of stories from the 1940's and early 1950's, edited by John W. Campbell Jr.. The 23 stories included were all published originally in "Astounding Science Fiction" between May of 1940 and March of 1951. This anthology was published in 1952.
In comparing it with the other anthologies, such as those edited by Groff Conklin, it falls short in a couple of areas. The first is that there are fewer stories included, which isn't a big problem since the quality is very high. The second is that many of the stories included had already appeared in other collections prior to this one. However, for those who don't already have those collections, this is a good place to start.
The list of authors reads like a who's who of science fiction from the period, and many of the stories are classics. The list of stories is: "Blowups Happen" by Robert A. Heinlein, "Hindsight" by Jack Williamson, "Vault Of The Beast" by A. E. van Vogt, "The Exalted" by L. Sprague De Camp, "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov, "When The Bough Breaks" by Lewis Padgett, "Clash By Night" by Lawrence O'Donnell, "Invariant" by John R. Pierce, "First Contact" by Murray Leinster, "Meihem In Ce Klasrum" by Dolton Edwards, "Hobbyist" by Eric Frank Russell, "E For Effort" by T. L. Sherred, "Child's Play" by William Tenn, "Thunder And Roses" by Theodore Sturgeon, "Late Night Final" by Eric Frank Russell", "Cold War" by Kris Neville, "Eternity Lost" by Clifford D. Simak, "The Witches Of Karres" by James H. Schmitz, "Over The Top" by Lester del Rey, "Meteor" by William T. Powers, "Last Enemy" by H. Beam Piper, "Historical Note" by Murray Leinster, and "Protected Species" by H. B. Fyfe.
The anthology as a whole, was ranked 16th by readers on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll for books in 1952, and it moved up to 8th on the same poll taken in 1956. In 1999, it was tied for 17th on the Locus All-Time Poll for anthologies.
Of the stories within, Asimov's "Nightfall" was rated 1st on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll for short fiction in 1971, and 2nd on the Locus Poll in 1999 for novelettes. Leinster's "First Contact" tied for 9th on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll for short fiction in 1971, and won the Retro Hugo for best novelette in 1996 for the year 1945. Piper's "Last Enemy" was nominated for the Retro Hugo for best novella in 2001 for the year 1950.
Amazon.com
Elizabeth Becker's When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution is a heart-rending history of modern Cambodia--a state whose people have, in the last 30 years, endured war, political upheaval, international betrayal, and genocide. Beginning with the Khmer Rouge overthrow of the U.S.-backed Lon Nol regime in 1975, Becker examines the historical patterns of violence and authority within Cambodian culture that made the Khmer Rouge's slaughter of close to 2 million people possible.
Becker integrates interviews with Cambodian leaders and ordinary citizens with a penetrating analysis of the politics of the cold war and humanitarianism. For example, she follows the story of Mey Komphot, a banker, who, like millions of others, was displaced from his life in Phnom Penh and marched to a labor camp. She also explores how the United States, as well as many states within the United Nations, refused to acknowledge the forced departures and the killing in order to appease China's hunger for punishing Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia. By contrasting the concerns of states with those of people, Becker shows how the international order has repeatedly betrayed the people of Cambodia. When the War Was Over is more than just an authoritative account of the Cambodian Revolution; Becker's trenchant portrait of the dynamics of power and human suffering serves as a warning about how diplomatic imperatives can blunt the United Nations' ability to preserve human rights and life. --James Highfill
Book Description
Now back in print with a fascinating new chapter, this journalistic history of modern Cambodia is "indispensable for understanding our times and the noble and terrible sides of modern man. It is a powerful and important book" (The Washington Post Book World).
Customer Reviews:
Very interesting about Cambodia, partisan about USA.......2007-05-10
I should start by saying I do not know nearly enough about Cambodian history to judge the accuracy of this account. That said, it appears entirely plausible and illuminating.
Elizabeth Becker has done an excellent job of steering between the Scylla of explaining away Pol Pot's atrocities to the point of making him sound benign, and the Charibdis of demonizing him to the point of making him incomprehensible. What emerges is a compelling account of how rigid adherence to flawed dogma can transform ideals into horror.
In these days of Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! it is refreshing to see a book that helps, rather then hinders, understanding.
The reason I do not give five stars to this book is that the author seems to go out of her way to blame US policy for the Cambodian genocide. Other reviewers claim this is to cover up her own history of denying the genocide was taking place, which sounds plausible, but which I cannot verify.
Since she was writing for a western audience, there is merit in drawing attention to those western actions that seem, in hindsight, to have been mistakes, so that her readers can avoid supporting similar mistakes in the future. Particularly given the author's alleged history, it would have been more honest to have pointed out this motive for what seems a deliberate distortion of history.
Vast and Valuable.......2006-09-17
Elizabeth Becker's WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER stands out from the many fine books written about Cambodia during the 1970s for one major reason: she was one of the only Westerners invited into the country, and conducted one of the very few interviews with Pol Pot. As it turns out, the visit did not go smoothly, and she ended up having to be evacuated out as the Vietnamese army swept towards Phnom Penh.
Becker's writing is more scholarly than accessible, so - unless you already have an interest in the subject - you may find this to be rough going. Nonetheless, her research is airtight, and her recountings of developments in Cambodia between April 1975 and her late 1978 visit are methodical.
Becker did become known as - initially - a skeptic of the first wave of horror stories emerging from the country, and she doesn't address this directly here, but she does posit (on page 153) a fundamental quality of the Cambodian revolution that would indicate why so many outsiders (and many Cambodians as well, pre-revolution) were so severely caught off-guard by the speed and extremity of the insanity that descended upon the country: the 'front' government-in-exile (from which the Khmer Rouge emerged) was constructed as "a hall of mirrors," with the apparent leaders actually figureheads, stationed in faraway neutral spots and delivering speeches, while the real leaders - unknown and pseudonymous, contrived - with machiavellian precision - to usurp a messy and extremely violent civil war and turn it into an ill-considered, theory-drenched utopian revolution. This facade did not completely disintegrate until nearly 2 years into the existance of a genocidal regime whose leaders were essentially unknown.
Becker makes this compelling, and digs into the humanistic and psychological extremism of the story. Afforded the opportunity to travel to Cambodia, she and two journalist companions were shown a number of factories and potempkin villages, spotting bits of evidence (in spite of the manicured presentation given them by their KR minders) that would essentially confirm the horror stories they had been hearing. Becker was allowed to interview Pol Pot, who discoursed in a fashion so paranoid and disassociative as to call his psychological stability into question; Becker's recollection of the event is notable for it's ornate grimness. And then Becker and her travelling companions were ambushed, on the eve of the invasion that ejected the KR from power.
A vast, comprehensive, difficult and disturbing history of Cambodia from 1975 to the end of 1978; of specialized interest perhaps, but also a valuable history of one of humanity's worst atrocities.
-David Alston
Phenomenal account of the Cambodia situation!!.......2004-10-31
I bought this book because i was going to visit Cambodia and like many people, i wanted to understand the whole political situation of that country.I only knew some information about the suffering of refugees and about Pol Pot.From the moment i started this book, i just couldnt put it down.Ms Becker gives youthe whole nine yards with this book in a very simple and interesting manner.With her crystal clear explanations, you can understand every political,geographical and socially term and situation.Her style of writing has you on the edge of your seat and you right in the middle of things.The chapters of the book that deal with all the major powers and their diplomatic "dances" toward Cambodia are very well presented and ,again, in terms that we all can understand.She also presents the Vietnam side of the story without dwelling too much on details but , at the same time, giving you all the necessary information needed to understand the vietnamese intervention in Cambodia....Excellent work!!
Excellent. A must read on Cambodian History.......2004-08-09
I really liked this book. The book covers a lot of ground. Apart from covering at Cambodian history, the book tells the tales of individual Cambodians who have lived or died through the Khmer Regime. The book also covers the world political influence as the tragedy unfolds in Cambodia and how each of these players plays an active or passive role in the tragedy. The reporting on the resolution of the conflict is also very interesting. It shows how geopolitics and individual personalities are so critical in resolution of these types of conflicts.
The book also covers US attitudes towards the IndoChina region in the aftermath of the Vietnam war and what the implications of the attitude were to the region.
The only drawback of the book I found is that sometimes the narrative gets a little tedious and repetitive.
Tedious and poorly written.......2003-05-07
I came here looking for a book that might explain the background to what happened in Cambodia. But i can only conclude Becker covered this turmoil from the her apartment's balcony. This has to be one of the most lifeless products of a typewriter keyboard that I have ever read. Maybe that's too harsh, but I know I didn't find the answer to anything I was looking for. Who did she write this for, herself?
Product Description
A Confederate girl in Gordonsville, Virginia, in 1864, Emma Simpson writes about the hardships of growing up during a turbulent time, as the Civil War tears her family and her nation apart. Ages 9-12
Customer Reviews:
This is a good book!!.......2007-02-08
I really enjoyed this book! The reader can realize the tragedy of the Civil War, not through a Union soldier's eyes, but through Emma, a teenage girl struggling with the many changes she faces. Her diary speaks of her sorrow and joy, her anger and sadness with the war. Emma respects her family and most of her friends. However, she rarely got rebuked, which bored me a little. This is a great book. The author was good at making it seem like Emma is writing. Do not miss this Civil War tale!
Love it.......2006-10-06
hey I love this book cuz its fun 2 read. Its about a 14-year-old girl named Emma whos mother dies in the story and Emma lives in a small town in Virginia. Her family is dying, including her baby cousin Elizabeth. Emma's father is out at war so she is all alone. Her brother Cole dies as well.
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