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Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us
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Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did Paperback - 1998

by Baritz, Loren

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In a probing look at the myths of American culture that led us into the Vietnam quagmire, historian Loren Baritz exposes our national illusions--the conviction of our moral supremacy, our assumption that Americans are more idealistic than other people, and our faith in a technology that supposedly makes us invincible.

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paperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.
Used - Good
NZ$63.00
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First line

In 1972, while worshiping in a temple near an American air base, Colonel Chuc sank into a trance and received a battle plan and a magical sword from the spirit of the Vietnamese general who defeated Kublai Khan's Mongols seven hundred years earlier.

From the rear cover

In a probing look at the myths of American culture that led us into the Vietnam quagmire, Loren Baritz exposes our national illusions: the conviction of our moral supremacy, our assumption that Americans are more idealistic than other people, and our faith in a technology that supposedly makes us invincible. He also reveals how Vietnam changed American culture today, from the successes and failures of the Washington bureaucracy to the destruction of the traditional military code of honor.

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About the author

Loren Baritz has served as chairman of the Department of History at the University of Rochester, provost and acting chancellor at the State University of New York, and provost at the University of Massachusetts. He is the author of The Servants of Power, City on a Hill, and The Culture of the Twenties.