The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War Paperback - 1997
by Paul Hendrickson
A heroic feat of research, reportage, and moral indignation, this brilliant and controversial book tells the story of Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense who came to symbolize all the arrogance and evasiveness of the war in Vietnam. A National Book Award finalist & a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year. Photos.
From the jacket flap
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Finalist for the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism "Meticulous in detail, epic in scope, psychologically sophisticated and spiritually rich, it ranks with The Best and the Brightest and All the President's Men."
--San Francisco Chronicle More than the two presidents he served or the 58,000 soldiers who died for his policies, Robert McNamara was the official face of Vietnam, the technocrat with steel-rimmed glasses and an ironclad faith in numbers who kept insisting that the war was winnable long after he had ceased to believe it was. This brilliantly insightful, morally devastating book tells us why he believed, how he lost faith, and what his deceptions cost five of the war's witnesses and McNamara himself.
In The Living and the Dead, Paul Hendrickson juxtaposes McNamara's story with those of a wounded Marine, an Army nurse, a Vietnamese refugee, a Quaker who burned himself to death to protest the war, and an enraged artist who tried to kill the man he saw as the war's architect. The result is a book whose exhaustive research and imaginative power turn history into an act of reckoning, damning and profoundly sympathetic, impossible to put down and impossible to forget. "A masterpiece. . . . [Hendrickson] has a gift with language that most writers can only dream about. "
--Philadelphia Inquirer "Approaches Shakespearian tragedy."
--The New York Times Book Review
Details
- Title The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War
- Author Paul Hendrickson
- Binding Paperback
- Edition Softcover Ed
- Pages 448
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Vintage, New York
- Date October 28, 1997
- Illustrated Yes
- ISBN 9780679781172 / 067978117X
- Weight 0.93 lbs (0.42 kg)
- Dimensions 8 x 5.21 x 0.93 in (20.32 x 13.23 x 2.36 cm)
-
Themes
- Chronological Period: 1960's
- Chronological Period: 20th Century
- Cultural Region: Northeast U.S.
- Cultural Region: Southeast Asian
- Library of Congress subjects Vietnam War, 1961-1975 - United States, McNamara, Robert S.
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 96007445
- Dewey Decimal Code 959.7
Media reviews
Citations
- New York Times, 01/11/1998, Page 20
- Publishers Weekly, 09/15/1997, Page 74
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