Read Valley of the Shadow The Siege of Dien Bien Phu Audible Audio Edition Kevin Boylan Luc Olivier Joe Barrett Tantor Audio Books

Product details Audible Audiobook Listening Length 11 hours and 27 minutes Program Type Audiobook Version Unabridged Publisher Tantor Audio Audible.com Release Date February 12, 2019 Whispersync for Voice Ready Language English, English ASIN B07N8G69J1

Valley of the Shadow The Siege of Dien Bien Phu Audible Audio Edition Kevin Boylan Luc Olivier Joe Barrett Tantor Audio Books Reviews

• If you have an interest in the battle of Dien Bien Phu and have read Kevin Boylan’s prize-winning article on Vietnamese artillery, then you have probably been looking forward to this book with eager anticipation. If so, then you will not be disappointed.
  
  Boylan and Olivier’s work provides a much-needed reappraisal of the battle by addressing many of the tropes about it that have been repeated since the early works of Jules Roy, Bernard Fall and Pierre Rocolle. Roy, Fall and Rocolle were dealing with incomplete information from the French side and almost no information from the Vietnamese side so their failings are understandable, but they have been repeated too often and for too long.
  
  Now, by using more recent and more complete French sources, (including the archive of letters to Roger Bruge, author of “Les Hommes de Dien Bien Phu,”) interviews by Luc Olivier, SHD archival work, and, most importantly, several Vietnamese sources backed up by first-hand accounts from Delgado and Dao (eds) “Dien Bien Phu, Vu d’En Face,” Boylan and Olivier have put together a clear and comprehensive account of the battle. This is all presented in pleasingly well written and straightforward prose without academic gobbledygook but still with a scholarly rigorous approach to footnotes, so you can see where their points are coming from. The battle is told from both sides, with each phase explained in a detailed, but still concise, manner with a “conclusions” section included for each phase that highlights the successes and failures of the combatants in an even-handed manner. I considered most of these conclusions as “spot on” although a few smacked of “Monday morning quarterbacking,” but then the authors are entitled to their opinions. My only cavil is that I would have liked a few more maps, one picture is, after-all, worth a thousand words.
  
  Overall “The Valley of the Shadow” is probably the best English language book on the battle since Roy, Fall and Rocolle broke the ground 50 years ago. Boylan and Olivier’s scholarship and judgement has made it worth the wait.
  Peter Hunt
• Dien Bien Phu has attracted a great deal of interest and a number of fine books have been written about the battle. However, until recently, the Communist materials have been inacessible. In this book, the authors have been able to use materials that shed new light on what was going on in the Communist camp. It has been accepted dogma that the besiegers had an overwhelming advantage in artiiery. The authors show that the advantage was small and for most of the siege the French had a substantial advantage in available ammunition and used it. The authors also highlight the multicultural nature of the French army Some of the "non-French" performed poorly, others were steadfast. This book deals with many technical aspects of warfare and is not an easy read. However, for anyone deeply interested in the battle, it is indispensable.
• When I first started reading this book, I felt like a guy who had joined a conversation that had already started. The prelude to the battle chapters assume I knew a lot more than i did about the French in (then) Indochina, and knew who some of the major players were. The authors seemed to have a habit of taking pot shots at the works by previous authors which can be annoying. We get it, a book written in 1965 about the battle may not be as accurate due to lack of access to certain records, but on the other hand there is an immediacy not present in the current book due to the fact that there are less survivors to interview 60 years after a battle is fought. All complaining aside, once you get past te first couple chapters it is a great book. It's written for 21st century readers and gives a excellent overview of the battle at different levels. If someone wanted ot read only one book on the the battle I would sggest this one, or Jules Roy's book but this has much more detail, before moving ontho other authors.
• A new look at the siege of Dien Bien Phu, one which veers off of the standard narrative that Fall and Roy first offered up. Taking advantage of access to information from the Viet Minh perspective, the events in Northwestern Tonkin are given a new perspective.
• Need a better understanding of US involvement in VietNam? This book fills in the blanks. It dispels tons of myths about those leading VN to independence from China, Japan and France.
• Good read lots of good information.
• The defeat of french army in Dien Bien Phu was impossible.....yellow skin people can't defeat a european army in open battle, a history teacher as Giap can't be a better general than a Saint Cyr graduate.........
  The european hubris at the end was not match to the vietnamese resilience and dedication, the book show why the vietnamese won, Fall book was at the time the master piece of the battle, now this book take the lead.