After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam

The Tet Offensive of early 1968 was supposed to mark a turning point in the Vietnam War. But in spite of a halt to the bombing of the North and the onset of the Paris peace talks, the year that followed Tet saw the war's fiercest fighting, as a large and awesomely equipped American fighting force found itself bloodied by an enemy that seemed to evaporate before its firepower only to reappear once the smoke cleared. In this sweeping and at times harrowing chronicle, the author of the best-selling Eagle Against the Sun draws on a wealth of oral histories and newly classified documents to show us the war that television missed. Here are the race riots and drug use that swept the American army; the rampant corruption of the ARVN; the potent mix of myth and ideology that made the North Vietnamese such formidable foes. Panoramic in its scope, riveting in its detail, After Tet is a triumph of military and political history.