Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

Summary

Fredrik Logevall tells the long story of how France lost its colonial hold on Indochina and how the United States stepped into the same trap. He moves from the end of World War Two through the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu to the early American commitments that set the stage for a wider war. The book stands out for tying diplomatic decisions in Paris and Washington to events on the ground, showing how a distant conflict became an American one.