refuses to bind himself with ideological constraints, opening nuanced pathways for reassessing this difficult history, especially in the context of current and looming conflicts. A lot of his book is committed to restoring a sense of proportion to his subject's image as a political Svengali, or 'Lawrence of Asia.' Louis Menand, New YorkerĪn Amazon Best Book of January 2018: Boot’s research is deep and seemingly impeccable the material is complex and dense, but it reads like a novel and maybe most importantly, Boot. believes that Lansdale's approach was the wiser one, but he is cautious in his analysis of what went wrong. . . . covert activities in postwar Southeast Asia. . . . is expansive and detailed, it is well written, and it sheds light on a good deal about U.S. Diligently researched and gracefully written, it builds on a comprehensive analysis of Lansdale’s triumphs in the post–World War II Philippines to provide much new material, and expose old myths, about one of the most fascinating, and in many ways ultimately saddest, members of the supporting cast in the later war in Vietnam. In this fine portrait of Edward Lansdale, Max Boot adds to his well-deserved reputation as being among the most insightful and productive of contemporary historians. The Road Not Taken gives a vivid portrait of a remarkable man and intelligently challenges the lazy assumption that failed wars are destined to fail or that failure, if it comes, cannot be saved from the worst possible outcome. Boot’s full-bodied biography does not ignore Lansdale’s failures and shortcomings-not least his difficult relations with his family-but it properly concentrates on his ideas and his attempts to apply them in Southeast Asia.
The Road Not Taken is an impressive work, an epic and elegant biography based on voluminous archival sources. One of the Best Biographies of the Year (Amazon) Lawrence of Asia,” from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975. Through dozens of interviews and access to never-before-seen documents-including long-hidden love letters-Boot recasts this cautionary American story, tracing the bold rise and crashing fall of the roguish “T.E. Lansdale advocated a visionary policy that, contends Boot, was ultimately crushed by America’s giant military bureaucracy, steered by elitist generals and patrician diplomats who favored troop buildups and napalm bombs over winning the trust of the people.
Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, presents a groundbreaking biography of Edward Lansdale, the legendary covert operative-the purported model for Graham Greene’s The Quiet American-who pioneered a “hearts and minds” approach to wars in the Philippines and Vietnam. Amazon has selected the biography as one of its Best Books of January 2018 and has said it "reads like a novel."īoot, the Jeane J. The Vietnam War “might have taken a very different course-one that was less costly and potentially more successful-if the counsel of this CIA operative and Air Force officer had been followed,” writes Max Boot in The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.
0 kommentar(er)
