The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780871409416)

In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908- 1987), the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene's The Quiet American, best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a "hearts and mind" diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America's giant military bureaucracy, steered by elitist generals and blueblood diplomats who favored troop build-ups and napalm bombs over winning the trust of the people. Through dozens of interviews and access to neverbefore-seen documents--including long-hidden love letters--Boot recasts this cautionary American story, tracing the bold rise and the crashing fall of the roguish "T. E. Lawrence of Asia" from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975. Bringing a tragic complexity to this so-called "ugly American," this "engrossing biography" (Karl Marlantes) rescues Lansdale from historical ignominy and suggests that Vietnam could have been different had we only listened. With reverberations that continue to play out in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Road Not Taken is a biography of profound historical consequence.

Author: Max Boot
ISBN-10: 0871409410
ISBN-13: 9780871409416
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 01/09/2018
Pages: 768
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.70lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.40w x 1.90d
Award: Pulitzer Prize - Finalist

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2017
Booklist 10/15/2017 pg. 11
Kirkus Reviews 10/15/2017 pg. 45
Publishers Weekly 10/30/2017
Library Journal 11/15/2017 pg. 88
Shelf Awareness 01/26/2018