Podcast appearances and mentions of Mark P Bradley

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely collection of articles and essays by Marilyn B Young, edited by Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak. In this interview, Mark Bradley joined me to discuss Marilyn Young's life and legacy, the impetus for assembling the book, and the relevance of her work in the present moment. The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich. Marilyn B Young (1937-2017) was a renowned historian of American foreign relations and a longtime professor of history at New York University. Her landmark book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 remains a defining work in the field. Mark P Bradley (interviewee and co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Bernadotte E Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago and author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Mary L Dudziak (co-editor of Making the Forever War) is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.  Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington's successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk' entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it's headed.

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington's successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk' entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it's headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington’s successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk’ entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it’s headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington’s successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk’ entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it’s headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington’s successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk’ entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it’s headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington’s successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk’ entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it’s headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington’s successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk’ entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it’s headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington's successors heeded this advice is an open question; the U.S.–at least since World War I–has often been and remains today “entangled” in various ways. But, as Mark P. Bradley points out in his new book The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the language in which the U.S. has excused and explained its engagement of other countries changes from time to time. In the 1940s and again in the 1970s, Bradley convincingly argues, American diplomats (and numerous citizens and NGOs) began to talk about foreign engagements in a new way–in the idiom of putatively universal “human right.” This line of foreign policy reasoning, of course, continues have force today. In The World Reimagined, Bradley describes and explains how ‘human rights talk' entered American political and diplomatic culture, and the direction it's headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He'd come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn't because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I've read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I'd never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley's Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He's mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he's done a marvelous job of it. My uncle's war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story.

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices