000			03230cam a2200277 a 4500
001			028096
005			20231009192529.0
008			102307s2010 nyuabef b 001 0 eng
010			_a2009019714
020			_a9781400066643
050	0	0	_aDS553.3.D5 _bM665 2010
082	0	0	_a959.704 MOR
100	1		_aMorgan, Ted _d(, 1932-)
245	1	0	_aValley of death _b: the tragedy at Dien Bien Phu that led America into the Vietnam War _c/ Ted Morgan
250			_a1st ed
260			_aNew York _b: Random House _c, c2010.
300			_axxii, 722 p., [16] p. of plates _b: ill., map, plans _c; 25 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [645]-692) and index.
505	0	0	_gAct I: The _t. first partition of Vietnam -- _gAct II: The _t. Colonial War becomes a proxy war -- _gAct III: _t. Navarre takes command -- _gAct IV: The _t. battle -- _gAct V: _t. Diplomacy, defeat, and captivity.
520			_aPulitzer Prize-winning author Ted Morgan has now written a rich and definitive account of the fateful battle that ended French rule in Indochina-and led inexorably to America's Vietnam War. Dien Bien Phu was a remote valley on the border of Laos along a simple rural trade route. But it would also be where a great European power fell to an underestimated insurgent army and lost control of a crucial colony. Valley of Death is the untold story of the 1954 battle that, in six weeks, changed the course of history. A veteran of the French Army, Ted Morgan has made use of exclusive firsthand reports to create the most complete and dramatic telling of the conflict ever written. Here is the history of the Vietminh liberation movement's rebellion against French occupation after World War II and its growth as an adversary, eventually backed by Communist China. Here too is the ill-fated French plan to build a base in Dien Bien Phu and draw the Vietminh into a debilitating defeat-which instead led to the Europeans being encircled in the surrounding hills, besieged by heavy artillery, overrun, and defeated. Making expert use of recently unearthed or released information, Morgan reveals the inner workings of the American effort to aid France, with Eisenhower secretly disdainful of the French effort and prophetically worried that "no military victory was possible in that type of theater." Morgan paints indelible portraits of all the major players, from Henri Navarre, head of the French Union forces, a rigid professional unprepared for an enemy fortified by rice carried on bicycles, to his commander, General Christian de Castries, a privileged, miscast cavalry officer, and General Vo Nguyen Giap, a master of guerrilla warfare working out of a one-room hut on the side of a hill. Most devastatingly, Morgan sets the stage for the Vietnam quagmire that was to come. Superbly researched and powerfully written, Valley of Death is the crowning achievement of an author whose work has always been as compulsively readable as it is important.
650		0	_aDien Bien Phu, Battle of, iòen Biên Phu _z--Vietnam _y--1954
650		0	_aIndochinese War _y--1946-1954 _x--Causes
651		0	_aUnited States _x--Foreign relations _y--1945-1953
651		0	_aVietnam _x--Foreign relations _z--United States
942			_cMO
999			_c240869 _d240869