Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia, Updated Edition

by Arnold R. Isaacs

Overview

In a new and updated second edition, this book--first published in 1983--provides a detailed review of the end of the Vietnam War. Drawing on the author's eyewitness reporting and extensive research, the book relies on carefully reported facts, not partisan myths, to reconstruct the war's last years and harrowing final months. The catastrophic suffering those events brought to ordinary Vietnamese civilians and soldiers is vividly portrayed. The largely unremembered wars in Cambodia and Laos are examined as well, while new material in an updated final chapter points out troubling parallels between the Vietnam War and America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476686356
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	11/11/2022
Pages:	446
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Arnold R. Isaacs, freelance writer and educator, reported on the closing years of the Vietnam war during six years in Asia as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. Following his career in daily journalism, he continued to travel widely as a teacher and international journalism trainer. He lives in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Preface to the New Edition 1

Preface to the First Edition 5

Part I The Peace

Chronology 9

Chapter 1 "This war will never end": January 28, 1973 12

Chapter 2 The Paris Agreement 21

Chapter 3 Ceasefire 65

Chapter 4 "An army with a country": Thieu's Vietnam 85

Chapter 5 The Americans Leave (1) 102

Part II The Pawns

Chronology 121

Chapter 6 Laos: The Kingdom of Lane-xang 126

Chapter 7 Cambodia: "The land is broken" 148

Chapter 8 Fall of the Khmer Republic 190

Part III The Fall

Chronology 233

Chapter 9 "A broken sword" 236

Chapter 10 Collapse 272

Chapter 11 "It is like an avalanche" 303

Chapter 12 "Your mission is very heavy" 340

Chapter 13 The Fall of Saigon 353

Chapter 14 The Limits of Credibility 388

Chapter Notes 407

Bibliography 425

Index 435

Editorial Reviews

Without Honor should be required reading for any American politician contemplating the issues of war, particularly American involvement in a war in Asia.”—The VVA Veteran; “Forty years on, ‘Skip’ Isaacs's Without Honor remains an indispensable feature in any Cold War historian’s professional library. This updated edition, with new insights on the limits of American power abroad, showcases the human element of war that far too many accounts lack as they debate the merits of US foreign policy and grand strategy or Cold War ideologies. Isaacs excels in telling a harrowing tale of Americans’ withdrawal from Vietnam and a war that persisted long after they departed. A stellar work of enduring importance.”—Gregory A. Daddis, USS Midway Chair in Modern U.S. Military History, San Diego State University, author of Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure Magazines; “Without Honor is by far the best English-language book which provides unsurpassed coverage of the two years following the Paris Peace Agreement, ending U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. As a Baltimore Sun reporter on the ground, Arnold Isaacs writes eloquently and with deep insight into the unfolding events of that latter period. His description of events in South Vietnam and Cambodia is riveting, while joined to a keen analytical perspective. For those who missed reading Without Honor the first time, the re-issue of this book will provide a surprising and enriching experience.”—Carolyn Eisenberg, author of Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger and the Wars in Southeast Asia; From the previous edition: 1983 Notable Book of the Year—New York Times; 1983 Notable Book of the Year—American Library Association; Outstanding Academic Title—Choice

From the Publisher