...I'm not sorry I read it.

Throughout, there are hints of "conspiracy theories" but I think that is unavoidable in a topic as sensitive as this one. Did the US knowingly abandon troops in Vietnam and Laos? Do we know they are still there but unwilling to do what's necessary to get them home? These questions are answered, I think, satisfactorily. It's well-documented and the photographs are very applicable.

While not necessarily what I consider a 5-star book, it was recommended to me by an avid history and military history reader whose opinion I regard highly. If these topics are your "cup of tea", I'd recommend this even more.

For two decades following the Vietnam war, ill-fated attempts by the United States to obtain conclusive evidence concerning the fate of hundreds of POW/MIA's from the Vietnam war finally found success. In a bold and daring espionage mission, former U.N. refugee officer Theodore G. Schweitzer was the acting agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in what later became known as Operation Swamp Ranger.

Beginning in March of 1992 and lasting several months, Schweitzer was granted access to Vietnamese war archives that held a voluminous amount of information on U.S. servicemen that were missing in action and others that were held as prisoners of war. Vietnam, up until this point, had strenuously denied for years that they had any useful data on missing servicemen and they blatantly withheld documents that would solve many discrepancy cases on unknown losses of U.S. personnel. Using previously unreleased photographs, meticulously annotated files, and physical evidence, Operation Swamp Ranger completely exposed Vietnam's attempts to bury the POW/MIA issue over the years. Although only suspected by the U.S. government, Vietnam's General Political Directorate (GPD) finally admitted that many U.S. servicemen were killed in cold blood.

Operation Swamp Ranger also proved to be useful in the aspect that it helped dispel the widespread theory that Americans had been abandoned by the U.S. government after repatriation of POW's in 1973. Furthermore, scams and other fraudulent activities aimed at the grieving families of MIA's were exposed and contradicted by evidence gained from Hanoi's archives. Lastly, there appears to be no conclusive facts to date which could verify that there are actual live POW's still held in Vietnam today.

Although limited cooperation with the Vietnamese government regarding POW/MIA's faltered after revelations from Operation Swamp Ranger became known to the public at large, the U.S. government still claimed a large victory in what amounts to a monumental breakthrough in the enduring POW/MIA controversy. Unfortunately, this long and arduous journey does not have a happy ending. Not yet, anyway. Even as the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) continues to negotiate, haggle, bargain, cajole, and mediate with Vietnam regarding additional unreleased material they still hold, there are no clear indications of just how much further progress will be accomplished in the future. As stated in the author's narrative, communist archives are notoriously known for disinformation and forgeries and nothing in Vietnam is ever straightforward or simple.

Inside Hanoi's Secret Archives is a remarkable investigation into previously hidden wartime data. Generously footnoted and offering revealing photographs, this is a fascinating and memorable reading experience. Anyone having the slightest or even most demanding questions concerning the ongoing legacy of missing U.S. servicemen in Vietnam, I would enthusiastically recommend this book to you and to everyone in general.

This is an excellent travelogue whih gives real ensight into the normal individual "Burmese" struggling against the odds in Burma. It gives a real flavour of a very complex political situation - so many factions, parties and racial groups.

I've never been to Thailand or Burma but I found it an interesting and informative book on a little-known area. The factual information was woven into the travelogue in such a way that it was easy to digest, particularly as you got into the book.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to open their eyes to the realities of the Burmese situation as a whole, while understanding it from a very human level.

"Kawthoolei Dreams, Malaria Nights" by Martin MacDonald offers a unique perspective on the political situation in Burma. Through his extensive travels, and his contact with the insurgent Karen, the author has acquired an insider's understanding of the struggle, its protagonists, and its victims.

Although sympathetic to the insurgents, the book provides a balanced and accessible assessment of the complex factors shaping the course of Burma's recent troubles.

Structured around the author's adventures while travelling in Burma, the book is by turns exciting, funny, and thought provoking. MacDonald has travelled through both the lowlands and mountains of Burma, as well as the shadowy frontier area along the Thai-Burma border, and uses his experiences to ease the reader into the fascinating but complicated historical reasons for the current situation.

While there are already several excellent books available about Burma, "Kawthoolei Dreams, Malaria Nights" fills a large gap in this literature, being more accessible than the heavy-going political studies (like Bertil Lintner's "Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948" and Martin Smith's "Burma - Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity") but providing a greater depth and understanding than a mere travelogue (such as Rory Maclean's "Under the Dragon - Travels in Burma").

"Kawthoolei Dreams, Malaria Nights" is recommended for anyone wishing to travel in Burma or Thailand, or for those who wish to know more about the fascinating events in this mysterious country.

Linguists (especially English-speaking ones) would do well to look to the Japanese language and test their theories against it *first* before making o'erhasty generalizations about language. I turned to this book after reading Anna Wierzbicka's work on 'semantic universals' and found that it validated my ideas that there is no exact equivalent in the Japanese language for the English word 'you' (or 'Du' in German, 'tu' in French, etc.). However, Shibatani's work is enjoyable and very informative. Non-linguists can (I think) understand it without much difficulty, and students of Japanese (as well as native speakers!) may enjoy his overview of the history and development of the language. He also goes out of his way to disprove certain 'myths' about Japanese. Plus it has a bibliography of works in both Japanese and English.

I sincerely hope more books of this kind will emerge.

Shibatani's book "the Languages of Japan" is now 10 years old, but it still proves to be an excellent resource not only for the weathered linguist, but for anyone with any interest in Japanese, Ainu, and their various dialects.

This edition gives a concise overview of Ainu and Japanese from phoentics to semantics and more. I found the chapter on Japanese dialects especially fascinating, and the first half of the book that is dedicated to Ainu is one of the most comprehensive modern works on the language of Japan's indigineous peoples.

This volume is small and thus limited in its content, but overall it still remains a valuable and excellent resource for linguists and language buffs.

This biography of Tenskwatawa is the only work devoted to the role and importance of the influencial Shawnee Prophet who has long been eclipsed in both popular and scholarly works by his far more famous brother, Tecumseh.

Born in 1775 in Ohio, Tenskwatawa was one of three triplets born into the family of the Shawnee war chief Puckeshinwa. After surviving a less than ideal childhood and losing an eye in the process, Tenskwatawa soon found himself an outcast among his own tribe. Following the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, he and his people are forced to give up their claims to most of the Ohio Country and many, including himself, fall victim to alcoholism and despair. But after experiencing a vision he believes is sent by the Master of Life, Tenskwatawa is reborn as the Shawnee Prophet and begins to preach a return to the old ways and to reject the ways of the whites whom he says have corrupted and destroyed the Indians. His religious revival brings together many thousands of loyal followers from many tribes across the Old Northwest and becomes the core of the pan-Indian confederacy engineered by his older brother Tecumseh who intends to push the Americans back east of the Appalachain Mountains and reclaim their ancestoral homelands. Tragicly, these dreams are crushed by William Henry Harrison's victory over Tenskwata's forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Though Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa would continue to fight alongside the British in the War of 1812, the Prophet's reputation is devastated forever, as is the dream of uniting the tribes and driving the whites from their lands.

This is a fascinating book that covers much information not only about the Prophet, but his people and their history, as well as shedding much light on one of the primary causes of the War of 1812 and the Indians' role in that conflict.

The author uses many sources and many factual accounts of the events of the early 19th century in the area of the Old Northwest, present day Ohio Valley region. He shows that Tenskwatawa, also known as the Shawnee Prophet, was a proud man who would do anything to maintain his followers. It gives us a great insight into the difficult relations between the Americans and the Native Americans. The reading is fairly easy and the events described were very interesting. It was a very in-depth look into the life of the Shawnee Prophet, his followers and how they dealt with the world of change swirling around them and the culture clash that existed between the Native Americans and the white settlers moving in.

If you are interested in learning more about Native American culture, especially the Shawnee, then I would strongly recommend this book.

The author was a college student when the communists invaded Saigon and sent him to a reeducation camp. He was neither a politician nor a military man.

There he witnessed the cruelty of the wardens who starved, beat, and killed prisoners whenever they liked it. He was able to escape from the camp while accompanying an injured Viet Cong cadre to the hospital. He escaped to Thailand by boat and went on to graduate from Bennington College and Brown University after flipping burgers for some time.

This memoir describes the events from the time he was a highschooler in Vietnam until his enrollment at Bennington College. The resilience and courage of the author could only equal his academic success and his lyric prose.

This is a powerful story of survival and eventually escape from the jungle re-education camps of post-war Viet Nam.

See, perhaps for the first time, the untold side of this tragic piece of history. Huynh's prose is precise and poetic, at times transcending the brutal realism of the story in order to reach the spiritual core that held him together through his experience.

This is an important book for anyone who is interested in this time period, and more importantly, where we, the US and Viet Nam, will go from here.

This is the story about the three Nguyen brothers from Central South Vietnam in the 18th century. Vietnam was then divided into two regions: north and south and run by two warlords. There was also a king, but he was powerless.

North and South were warring against each other like during the 1954-75 war and the people were poor. The brothers revolted against the southern warlord and displaced him all the way to the southernmost tip of Vietnam. Nguyen Hue then moved against the northern warlord and chased him into China.

The Chinese invaded Vietnam at the request of the northern warlord. Nguyen Hue beat them handily and enthroned himself as king Quang Trung. The brilliant strategist not only was able to defeat the warlords but also the Chinese and to reunify the country in 1788. He unfortunately died in 1792 at the age of 42. His empire rapidly unraveled after his death. Vietnam no doubt would have been completely different had he lived longer.

This to my knowledge the first work published in English about the Tay Son and the author is to be congratulated for attempting to retrace the footsteps of general Nguyen Hue who, to this day, remains unknown in western countries.

Considering the deep and prolonged US involvement in Vietnam for almost a generation, the average American knows surprisingly little about the culture and history of this southeast Asian nation. An excellent way to remedy part of this deficiency is to read this book. Although technically a novel, the book provides a historically accurate account of the Tay Son rebellion, which took place from 1771 to 1802. With a broad sweep of characters and events, the book shows that the Vietnamese possessed a strong warrior tradition long before their protracted conflict with the French and later, the Americans. A minor problem some readers may have when beginning the book is its daunting number of characters, with their unfamiliar-sounding names. However, once into the narrative, the story flow is smooth and absorbing, and will repay the effort to sort out the cast. The characters come alive and the plot thickens as well as in a first-rate historical novel. Readers will come away from the book not only with a solid entertainment experience, but also with a better appreciation for a proud and cultured people.

Outdated (sometimes truly quaint) culturally, and definitely influenced by Jaschke's christian missionary orientation. Neverthless a classic that deserves a place on every Tibetan-English translator's bookshelf. I often consult it as a third-or-fourth opinion (after Rangjung Yeshe and Das) when I am searching for a good English match to the Tibetan. Was a pioneering work in its time, deserves continuing use within limits of its view.

Although I understand the technical reasons for not doing so, I wish that the examples and compounds were in the Tibetan script as the base entries are. I appreciate, however, the citations being full phrases so that the dictionary helps one learn written Tibetan. I especially appreciate the providing of the Sanskrit in devanagri where a Tibetan term is used technically as a translation of a Buddhist Sanskrit term. This is especially important for those whose primary language is Sanskrit but must learn Tibetan because so many Sanskrit Buddhist texts were lost.

Pls check status of my review on this book

In reading "Tiger in the Barbed Wire", I re-discovered Howard Simpson, having read an obscure mystery of his ("Junior Year Abroad") quite a few years ago. Believe me, the two books have nothing in common. Howard Simpson has discovered that he has more than one story to tell about his own life, no need to resort to fiction. How many Americans can claim to have served their country in Vietnam for so long, from pre-Dien Bien Phu to our own involvement much later? The late Lou Conein comes to mind but he did not leave a written legacy, nor was he likely to. Simpson not only worte about Dien Bien Phu but he was there, getting out while it was still possible to escape the trap being laid by the Viet Minh. Simpson draws word pictures of what it was like to be in Hanoi before the Geneva accords, when the French thought they still ruled the roost; he draws marvelous descriptions of what it was like to live in Saigon in those days when the French still clung to visions of their empire, looking down at the newly arriving Americans as interlopers. And finally, how that all changed, so dramatically, after DBP. This is a book to be savored by any former American officials in Vietnam. Simpson talks of familiar places that changed dramatically, of French conniving that was usually not in our best interest, of ever changing Vietnamese officials who usually did not understand official US policy, or worse, of ever changing US officials who rarely understood the Vietnamese or what was going on in Vietnam. But it is really Simpson's unique perspective on the French and their involvement that make this such a fascinating read for me. Howard Simpson's book has a spot in my library right along with History" but, truth be told, Simpson's was the most compelling, perhaps because I felt that I could identify with it personally. I look forward to reading his latest memoir, "Black Tie and Bush Hat". For me, Simpson's memoirs are more compelling than his mysteries - but this comes from an old francophile who has spent many years in France, including Marseilles and Paris, as well as Saigon. In short, all of Simpson's well tread venues. When he writes of the Corsican mafia and some favorite watering holes in Saigon, a smug smile comes to my face.

I had "The Unofficial Guide to Florida with Kids" and found it to be extremely useful. Since we were planning a trip to SC, I decided to buy this book. Unfortunately, the area we were planning on visiting (Hilton Head) was not included in this book.
Of course, they can't cover every area when the book is for the entire Southeast, I should have looked at it at the bookstore first. If you are undecided on where you are travelling in the SE, this book is for you, it's very informative on many of the major areas, with great ratings on different restaurants and tourist spots.

I like traveling with my children, but I admit there are times when it's more work than pleasure. I read several guides when planning a trip to Louisiana, but this one had the most kid-friendly information of them all. And it wasn't just of interest to kids -- I found lots of neat events and places that weren't mentioned in other guides my husband and I enjoyed as well.

The history of Vietnam is obscure to most Westerners, at least prior to the Indo-China war of the fifties. This book attempts to fill that gap, and provide a short overview of the history of the nation over the last thousand years or so. Given that it's a short book (text runs to just over 200 pages) it does a good job.

Vietnam has been wracked by wars and conquests during most of the period covered by the book, and make no mistake, that's the author's focus. There's nothing about culture, literature, art, science, or ordinary life in this book: it's about politics, and warfare. The author spends one chapter dealing with the period pre-French conquest, and a second covering the period of French colonialism. The rest of the book covers the Vietnam Wars from 1946-1975, with a brief chapter after chronicling the country's history since the end of the war.

This is a good book, given its limited scope. The author has much to say about the war, most of it critical of American and South Vietnamese leadership. Hey, they did lose the war! The book also doesn't flinch from recounting atrocities by both sides, recounting them judiciously, and not taking sides.

If I have a criticism of the book, it's that it's too short. Two hundred pages doesn't do justice to the history of the war at less than an overview level, and trying to fit the last thousand years in there too was perhaps a bit much. I found myself wishing for more.

As someone who grew up during the Vietnam era, I wanted to read a book that would give me some understanding of what went on during the Vietnam war. I was a bit too young to really comprehend the current events as they were happening but too old for the Vietnam war to be covered in the history books I studied in school.

This book provides a good, succinct overview of the military aspects of the war. While there are allusions to events outside the military realm (the protests back in the U.S., Kennedy's assasination, etc.) the focus is definitely on the war itself. While the main focus is on the period in which the U.S. was involved in Vietnam, a significant part of the book is devoted to setting the context for that period (wars in Vietnam during ancient times and, especially the French Indo-China wars). There is also a short section on what happened after the U.S. left Vietnam. This context is interesting since the author points out how many of the mistakes made by the U.S. had been made by others during earlier times.

The book is quite brief (204 pages), so the author does not go into great depth on anything. For example, the My Lai massacre takes up only a very brief paragraph. If you're looking for an in depth analysis of the war, you would probably be better off with another book. However, as a brief overview, I thought the book was quite well done.