My Lai

This book about the famous massacre of Vietnamese villagers by American soldiers may be difficult to read - but it is essential for understanding our recent history, and should become the standard reference on the subject." -The New York Times
Empirically, Jones has succeeded in including the perspective of Vietnamese victims and Viet Cong commanders -- a focus that the existing historiography lacks. * Marcel Berni, Journal of Contemporary History *
Jones is a versatile historian . . . and here, he successfully accomplishes two tasks: first, he provides as comprehensive a history of My Lai as we are likely to see for some time. Second, he thoughtfully probes the myriad ways that the My Lai story has been told. Jones succeeds on all counts." -Kirkus, Starred Review
Nearly 10 years in the making, this exhaustively researched and well-written narrative bores in on the details of what has become known as the My Lai Massacre. . . . Jones, professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama, mined an array of sources, including some original oral histories and interviews with Americans and Vietnamese, in producing this authoritative account of a dark moment in American history. * Publishers Weekly *
This important work deserves a wide audience and is essential for anyone interested in the Vietnam War." -LIBRARY JOURNAL
Jones' volume is a meticulous and detailed review of what happened in My Lai, the subsequent investigations and the courts-martial. His analysis is brutally frank yet fair, objective and balanced . . . Every graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, ROTC and OCS should be required to read this book before pinning on the gold bars." -Brigadier General David T. Zabecki, for HistoryNet
Howard Jones has produced the definitive work on My Lai. Beautifully written, balanced, and thorough, it makes full use of all the diverse sources previously unavailable to those who have written about My Lai, including those directly involved in its aftermath. Henceforth this significant work will be the go-to book on and authoritative reference to this American tragedy. * William G. Eckhardt, Col. (Ret.) JAGC, Chief Prosecutor My Lai Ground Action, Teaching Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Law *
The best book by far on the My Lai massacre and its aftermath * exhaustively researched, persuasively argued, and a page-turner to boot. A must-read for anyone interested not only in the Vietnam era, but also in how things can go terribly wrong in the midst of armed conflict, the laws of war notwithstanding. Truly exceptional!Ralph B. Levering, author of The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History *
Nearly 10 years in the making, this exhaustively researched and well-written narrative bores in on the details of what has become known as the My Lai Massacre. . . . Jones, professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama, mined an array of sources, including some original oral histories and interviews with Americans and Vietnamese, in producing this authoritative account of a dark moment in American history. * Publishers Weekly *
[A]n exhaustively researched and well-written narrative and analysis of the My Lai Massacre....[Jones] has produced a thorough and, as he says, 'balanced and accurate' analysis of the massacre itself, along with the event's controversial and convoluted legal and political aftermath. * Vietnam Veterans of America *
A powerful and discerning account of one of the darkest days in American military history. Judicious and unsparing, My Lai chronicles anew the 'Descent into Darkness,' and considers how we should think about the massacre today, half a century later. * Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam *
Howard Jones' My Lai is one of the most important books of the past decade on the Vietnam War. He has masterfully peeled away the complexity of the My Lai massacre and its cover-up to reveal more clearly than ever the dark horror, willful deceit, moral incompetence of this mass killing and its aftermath. Thanks to Jones, we now have a deeper understanding of My Lai and Vietnam. * William Thomas Allison, Georgia Southern University, author of My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War *
A searing investigation of a war crime so savage it could not be ignored or excused, and whose aftermath still courses through the veins of America's conscience, Howard Jones' My Lai now takes its place among the indispensable studies of modern American military history and the laws of war. * Roger Spiller, George C. Marshall Professor of Military History, emeritus, US Army Command and General Staff College *
Howard Jones has written a powerful account of America's darkest hour in the Vietnam War. The victims' pain, the soldiers' guilt, and their leaders' culpability are all laid out for us to read in this gripping history. For anyone who wants to understand the tragedy of that war, this is essential reading. * Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Dorothy Borg Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia, Columbia University *
Jones's book on My Lai is a great addition to the canon on the infamous massacre that came to portray the darkest side of American involvement in Vietnam. This book works as a note to our present and future leaders to think twice before going to war as atrocities will happen. For the everyday reader, it reminds us about the violent potential of ordinary human beings in the context of war. * Olli Siitonen, H-War *