Street Without Joy

Book Description

Harrisburg: Stackpole. (1963). The third edition of Fall's classic study of French policy and tactics in Southeast Asia and the American penchant for following in the footsteps of the French, duplicating their erroneous assumptions and mistakes. Perhaps the single most insightful volume on the Indochina war(s). Published by a press more noted for its sporting handbooks than for its general trade books, which often issued titles with first printings as small as 1000 copies. To read the book is to be struck by a slowly-building horror -- the realization that much of Fall's description of the failure of various tactics, strategies and policies in Vietnam was written before the United States employed those same tactics and strategies there. The book was published barely two months after the inauguration of President Kennedy, who commented that if Vietnam "were ever converted to a white man's war, we should lose it as the French had lost a decade earlier" -- prophetic words from an early moment in the American adventure in Southeast Asia. Inscribed by the author to a Major Talbott in 1965, "with sincerest regards." Page edges foxed, handling to boards, light wear to spine ends, phone number (?) on title page; about very good, lacking the dust jacket. . hardcover.

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