Overview

"Since the Vietnam War, the United States has been involved in several major military conflicts. Critics of US military intervention have consistently looked back to the Vietnam War for ""lessons."" Perhaps the most common and forceful ""lesson"" is that the military cannot be trusted to fight these wars"" ethically."" In making this argument, critics consistently point to the My Lai Massacre (March 16, 1968) as evidence that the US military is prone to committing atrocities or that the realities of the conflict make fighting it ""ethically"" impossible. This book addresses such criticism by offering a detailed analysis of the My Lai Massacre and the way it has come to be understood in the US. First, using a fine-grained analysis of 18,000 pages of perpetrator testimony and 5,000 pages of official documents, this study presents the most detailed reconstruction of the massacre itself available. Using this account, author Marshall Poe shows that standard histories of the massacre once incomplete and misleading. Second, using detailed survey of the American press, governmental records, and academic treatments of My Lai over the period 1968 to the present, Poe analyzes the origins and history of the commonplace that there were ""many My Lais."" Furthermore, Poe argues that this commonplace came to serve the interests of both liberal and conservative critics of the Vietnam War. The Reality of the My Lai Massacre And the Myth of the Vietnam War is an important resource for those studying American history and military history."

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9781621966715

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Reviews

"""This is an important book on My Lai, on the war in Vietnam, and on the way both My Lai and the war came to be framed in American culture. The book is divided into two parts. In the first part 'Reality, ' the author performs a distinct scholarly service in his careful analysis of all of the evidence assembled by the Peers Commission leads to an original account of what happened at My Lai and why it happened. He demonstrates effectively that there was a massive intelligence failure in the belief that My Lai was a VC stronghold that morning and that no civilians would be present. The second part 'Myth, ' is a bracing and well-sourced tour through the New Left, the Russell Tribunal, Hollywood films, the Winter Soldier hearings, and on to Robert Jay Lifton, Chaim Shatan, and the Vietnam Syndrome. This is the best account of what happened at My Lai and why it happened as well as a trenchant account of its cultural consequences."" -Gary Kulik, author of ""War Stories"" False Atrocity Tales, Swift Boaters, and Winter Soldiers-What Really Happened in Vietnam; former department head and assistant director of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution; and former editor of American Quarterly ""The Reality of the My Lai Massacre and the Myth of the Vietnam War makes two critical contributions to the vast scholarship on the Vietnam War. First, it offers the most empirically rich and analytically sophisticated account currently available of the Vietnam War's most infamous atrocity. And, second, it explains how that atrocity has been misunderstood and misused for political gain. Concise, well-written, and brimming with insights, this book is a modern classic."" -Peter Zinoman, Professor of History and Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley ""Using the wealth of available evidence to support his conclusions, Marshall Poe deconstructs some of the myths surrounding the My Lai massacre. This book shows that the 'first draft of history' written by war correspondents reporting from the frontlines and other journalists sometimes needs subsequent revision. And it demonstrates how real events can be used by academics, politicians, and activists alike to build a case that aligns with their point of view. This is a detailed and valuable reassessment of one the key stories to come out of the Vietnam War."" -Owen Bennett-Jones, journalist and former host of BBC World Service's Newshour"

Author Information

Marshall Poe (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. Dr. Poe taught history over several decades at Harvard University, New York University, Columbia University, and the University of Iowa. He also served as an editor and writer at The Atlantic magazine. Dr. Poe's previous publications include 'A People Born to Slavery': Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476-1748, The Russian Moment in World History, The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century, A History of Communications, and How to Read a History Book.

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