#722 in our old book database. Not rated.

Several years before we stepped into Vietnam with the idea of saving democracy, this book foreshadowed our venal weaknesses and hubris. A classic. ( )

This I read when trying to understand what Viet Nam in the 1960s would be like. ( )

A very loose collection of episodes detailing the interactions of various parts of the American expatriate community and the diplomatic service of the USA with the people and politics of a fictional south East Asian country, Sarkhan. When you are finished with reading it, you are open to understanding why the vietnamese war followed its course to the American defeat. The coutry that such an exploitive and manipulative alliance felt comfortable in creating, was easily prone to any socialist approach to getting rid of the American prescence ASAP. The book remains a telling critique of the American prescence in the world at large. For the rest of us it is a cautionary tale. ( )

4/26/22