This book is an excellent book for people wishing to learn Thai speech and writing. It uses both phonetic Thai and Thai script. Using both books 1 and 2 over a year of study I obtained a fairly good grasp of speech and written Thai which enabled me to communicate on a basic level when visiting Thailand. Highly reccomended for anyone wishing to learn the language.

This is the fourth and largest volume of a mammoth five-volume study (volume five is not yet complete). This review applies to both this volume and to the study in general.

The Gibbons Study is the largest, most balanced, and most complete study of US Government Vietnam policy currently available. Its goal is much like that of the Pentagon Papers, and in size it is just as big as the analysis section of that study. However, it is much more comprehensive, using resources (like the LBJ library) which were unavailable in the late 60s. It is all original analysis, and contains only a few pieces of contemporary primary documents (unlike the Pentagon Papers, which contains a million words of documents).

The study was commissioned by the Senate Foreign Relations committee in the late 1970s, and the work was done by Gibbons, a researcher in the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. True to his mission, Gibbons keeps his work as apolitical as possible.

Every page is very detailed and impeccably-referenced. The references themselves are worthy of note, as they use the rarely-used form of footnotes, as opposed to endnotes. Such a format puts the references right on the page with the main text, so it is far easier for the reader to make use of them. And, in the Gibbons study, the footnotes are often huge and detailed.

This work is frequently cited as a principal reference by many recent Vietnam writers, including Karnow, Hendrickson, Gardner, and Herring, exceeded in such references only by Foreigh Relations of the United States. It is a big, serious study, appropriate for only the most dedicated student of the war.

This volume is by far the largest in the series, amounting to approximately 645,000 words. In comparison, Stanley Karnow's great general history, "Vietnam: A History," is considered a large book, yet it measures 330,000 words. But don't be intimidated -- the size and detail of Gibbons' work only adds to its usefulness.

This is the best scholarly journal on the arts and history of Cambodia -- especially admirable as it is published in Cambodia. Worth hunting down.

This evocative book has haunted me since I first read it last year.

Rory MacLean weaves the story of his search for traditional Burmese culture (in the form of an antique basket)together with the tragic and profoundly moving lives of some contemporary Burmese. His harrowing and potentially deadly experience at the work's climax, takes his story and experience of Burma far beyond traditional travel literature, as his terror, on the one hand, and frustration and sadness about the destruction of Burmese traditions, on the other, grippingly recall the fear and loss of his earlier subjects.

As he was in his earlier works, the author, is an intriguing character in this book. His uniquely personal involvement in the story and first person narration make the experience immediate and compelling, and as the reader finds herself drawn into his accessible story of the quest, so she gains rare knowledge of what might have remained unknowable: Burma and its people. The basket story not only creates suspense and unifies the book; in a small way, it brings the reader into the drama and emotion experienced by contemporary Burmese.

This book transcends its genre, and warrants reading and rereading. I highly recommend it.

This book is an excellent historical overview of the US Air Force's efforts in Southeast Asia. I highly recommend it!

I teach ESL and I bought this dictionary for my 2 students, and they seem quite pleased. I don't speak the language, so I can't review its quality. :)

I found this book very informativ

The Vietnam War instigated by Ho Chi Minh caused 12 million people to be forcibly relocated: one out of two South Vietnamese had been a refugee at some point in their lives.

Anti-communist ideology was the cause of the 1954-55 exodus during which one million left North Vietnam for the South. From 1966-72, artillery, bombing, communist repression forced peasants to leave their villages to migrate to cities. The atrocities of the Viet Cong during and after the 1968 Tet attack caused people "to vote with their feet": they ran away as soon as they heard communists were coming. This was also the cause of the 1975 diaspora during which two million people escaped Vietnam on rickety boats. At least 500,000 others drowned or died from other causes at sea.

The author who is to be congratulated for his in-depth analysis of this important problem.

William Broyles who was a Vietnam Marine and subsequently editor-in- chief of Newsweek wrote about his war experience in an essay called "Why Men Love War" contained in this collection. It is a refreshing antithesis to the poltically correct dogma of the academy. I wonder if he voices what others secretly feel. I wonder how many of us feel similar emotions when we "do battle" with our gleaming swords during historical re-enactments or when practicing our martial arts or when we become caught up in the "righteous anger" of a Charlie Bronson.

Broyles writes:

"Men love their weapons, not simply for helping to keep them alive, but for a deeper reason. They love their rifles and their knives for the same reason that the medieval warriors loved their armor and their swords: they are instruments of beauty...(and) War is beautiful".

He continues:

"And then perhaps gunships called Spooky come in and fire their incredible guns like huge hoses washing down from the sky, like something God would do when He was really ticked off...Many men loved napalm, loved its silent power...I preferred white phosphorous...I loved it more -- not less -- because of its function: to destroy, to kill...War is, in short, a turn-on".

Finally:

"It is no accident that men love war, as love and war are at the core of man. It is not only that we must love one another or die. We must love one another *and* die...War is the enduring condition of man".

Obviously William Broyles feels no need to conceal his love of war, of killing. In another time, in another place, do you think we would be more likely to admit to that same blood lust??

Other, different perspectives are presented by Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Robert Bly, William Westmoreland, and others.

A book that will make you reconsider your own heart's desires!

This book has over 150 photos and nearly 400 Vietnam War Memorials listed from every state in the nation. It is the only book anywhere to give the background information on all of these monuments. ... .