Short description
Offers a warning about what American forces would face in the jungles of Southeast Asia. This title describes the brutality and frustrations of the Indochina War, the savage eight-year conflict-ending in 1954 after the fall of Dien Bien Phu-in which French forces suffered a staggering defeat at the hands of Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists.
Long description
Originally published in 1961, before the United States escalated its involvement in South Vietnam, Street Without Joy offered a clear warning about what American forces would face in the jungles of Southeast Asia: a costly and protracted revolutionary war fought without fronts against a mobile enemy. In harrowing detail, Fall describes the brutality and frustrations of the Indochina War, the savage eight-year conflict-ending in 1954 after the fall of Dien Bien Phu-in which French forces suffered a staggering defeat at the hands of Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists. With its frontline perspective, vivid reporting, and careful analysis, Street Without Joy was required reading for policymakers in Washington and GIs in the field and is now considered a classic.
Review
A poignant, angry, articulate book...' - Newsweek 'Definitive military history of the Indochina conflict' - New Republic 'Mr. Fall's book is a dramatic treatment of a historic event... the vast panorama of the Indochina struggle emerges with graphic impact in his volume.' - The New York Times Book Review
Table of contents
- How War Came
- Set-Piece Battle I
- Set-Piece Battle II
- Diary: Milk Run
- Laos Outpost
- Diary: The Women
- Street Without Joy
- Diary: Inspection Tour
- End of a Task Force
- Diary: The Men
- Death March
- Why Dien Bien Phu?
- The Loss of Laos
- The Second Indochina War
- The Future of Revolutionary War
- Index.