Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald. Published in 1972, Fire in the Lake was the first history of Vietnam written by an American. A journalist and historian Frances won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award as result of her reporting in Vietnam in 1966.
This is certainly a very worthy book to continue my education of the American war that lasted a generation. Approaching this book, 50 years after initial publication may appear ‘ancient’ by today’s internet-connected world. I can even recall assigned chapter readings of this book in college along with Stanley Karnow’s Vietnam: A History, Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War and Michael Herr’s Dispatches among other powerful writers.
Frances has simply written her outstanding analysis in two parts. First, addressing Vietnam, the Vietnamese people, and their long history of foreign oppression. This includes a Chinese occupation which lasted over 1,000 years and concludes with the era of French colonization of Indochina.
The second part of this book is addressing the American War effort which began during World War II and expanded under French rule until the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. At the time of publication, President Nixon was ramping up strategic bombing while withdrawing American troops. The American effort would end three years after publication in 1975 with the fall of Saigon.