The US in Vietnam

Graham Greene provides a scathing and accurate assessment of the psychology of America's involvement in the Vietnam conflict. Although this work is a fictional one, Greene has captured the utter blindness with which American policy makers approached our involvement in Southeast Asia. The nuances of the novel make it one which allows the reader to recognize subterranean truths about this nation's approach to a complex social/cultural situation. This is the first of all the fact-ridden books I have read that resonates with what actually happened in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. Greene's style is typically British, so if you are looking for an obvious message, this is not the book for you. It is the story of motivations and the emotional truths which guided our policymakers and the ultimate demise of our presence there.