Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Who remembers Pham-thi-Toi? She survived the My Lai massacre in 1968. Six of her relatives did not. She was compelled to move to a refugee camp despite the danger of landmines. One blew off her limbs. Nearly a year later, after being fitted with prostheses in an American Quaker-run rehab center for maimed Vietnamese civilians, Pham-thi-Toi returned and opened a small shop. In April 1972, South Vietnamese soldiers fired into the camp. Bullets tore into Pham-thi-Toi’s stomach. Having cheated death twice, this young woman was now among the millions of Southeast Asians killed in one of the most brutal wars of the twentieth century.

One may not expect to read such stories in a diplomatic history, but the human face of war stares at you throughout Fire and Rain, Carolyn Eisenberg’s 2024 Bancroft Prize-winning study of the lies, deceptions, and earth-shattering violence that propelled President Richard Nixon’s prosecution of the wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Read more here: