Stanley Karnow

A study of American involvement in Vietnam, from French domination to the final withdrawal of American forces, discusses the historical background, politics, military campaigns, participants, and consequences of American involvement

Vietnam, a History

In a swiftly paced, brilliantly vivid narrative, Karnow focuses on the relationship that has existed between the two nations since the United States acquired the country from Spain in 1898, examing how we have sought to remake the Philippines 'in our image, ' an experiment marked from the outset by blundering, ignorance, and mutual misunderstanding.

America's Empire in the Philippines

In Our Image

In July 1947, fresh out of college and long before he would win the Pulitzer Prize and become known as one of America's finest historians, Stanley Karnow boarded a freighter bound for France, planning to stay for the summer. He stayed for ten years, first as a student and later as a correspondent for Time magazine. By the time he left, Karnow knew Paris so intimately that his French colleagues dubbed him "le plus parisien des Américains" --the most Parisian American. Now, Karnow returns to the France of his youth, perceptively and wittily illuminating a time and place like none other. Karnow came to France at a time when the French were striving to return to the life they had enjoyed before the devastation of World War II. Yet even during food shortages, political upheavals, and the struggle to come to terms with a world in which France was no longer the mighty power it had been, Paris remained a city of style, passion, and romance. Paris in the Fifties transports us to Latin Quarter cafés and basement jazz clubs, to unheated apartments and glorious ballrooms. We meet such prominent political figures as Charles de Gaulle and Pierre Mendès-France, as well as Communist hacks and the demagogic tax rebel Pierre Poujade. We get to know illustrious intellectuals, among them Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and André Malraux, and visit the glittering salons where aristocrats with exquisite manners mingled with trendy novelists, poets, critics, artists, composers, playwrights, and actors. We meet Christian Dior, who taught Karnow the secrets of haute couture, and Prince Curnonsky, France's leading gourmet, who taught the young reporter to appreciate the complexities of haute cuisine. Karnow takes us to marathon murder trials in musty courtrooms, accompanies a group of tipsy wine connoisseurs on a tour of the Beaujolais vineyards, and recalls the famous automobile race at Le Mans when a catastrophic accident killed more than eighty spectators. Back in Paris, Karnow hung out with visiting celebrities like Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, and Audrey Hepburn, and in Paris in the Fifties we meet them too. A veteran reporter and historian, Karnow has written a vivid and delightful history of a charmed decade in the greatest city in the world.

Paris in the Fifties

“A brilliant, coherent social and political overview spanning three turbulent centuries.”—San Francisco Chronicle Stanley Karnow won the Pulitzer Prize for this account of America’s imperial experience in the Philippines. In a swiftly paced, brilliantly vivid narrative, Karnow focuses on the relationship that has existed between the two nations since the United States acquired the country from Spain in 1898, examining how we have sought to remake the Philippines “in our image,” an experiment marked from the outset by blundering, ignorance, and mutual misunderstanding. “Stanley Karnow has written the ultimate book—brilliant, panoramic, engrossing—about American behavior overseas in the twentieth century.”—The Boston Sunday Globe “A page-turning story and authoritative history.”—The New York Times “Perhaps the best journalist writing on Asian affairs.”—Newsweek

From Revolution to Revolution

Mao and China

Vietnam

Inside China's Cultural Revolution

StreetLib

Stanley Karnow là một trong số rất ít nhà báo phương Tây chứng kiến từ đầu đến cuối cuộc chiến tranh Việt Nam. Tác phẩm Vietnam – A History của ông là một tài liệu tham khảo không thể thiếu cho những ai tìm hiểu về chiến tranh Việt Nam. Cho đến nay chỉ một số người Việt đọc được tác phẩm của ông từ nguyên bản tiếng Anh. Nhân kỷ niệm 31 năm ngày kết thúc chiến tranh, talawas trân trọng giới thiệu bản dịch chương mở đầu của tác phẩm đó như là một góc nhìn về cuộc chiến cho những người chưa có điều kiện tiếp xúc với nguyên bản. Hy vọng trong một ngày gần đây chúng tôi có thể giới thiệu trọn vẹn công trình được giải thưởng Pulitzer này. Tác giả hoàn thành chương sách này năm 1997; đến nay tình hình đã thay đổi song vẫn có nhiều vấn đề còn mang tính thời sự.

Cuộc chiến không ai thắng

This monumental narrative clarifies, analyses and demystifies the terrible ordeal of the Vietnam war. Free of ideological bias, profound in its understanding and compassionate in its portrayal of humanity, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with the participants - French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers and soldiers. The Vietnam war was the most convulsive tragedy of recent times. This is its definitive history.

Stanley Karnow

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