Neil Sheehan's monumental bestselling account of the Vietnam War, winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction and the National Book Award. This tragic biography of John Paul Vann is also a sweeping history of America's seduction, entrapment, and disillusionment in Vietnam. 16-page photo insert.

One of the most acclaimed books of our time--the definitive Vietnam War exposé and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

When he came to Vietnam in 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and self-deception, a charismatic soldier who put his life and career on the line in an attempt to convince his superiors that the war should be fought another way. By the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. He died believing that the war had been won.

In this magisterial book, a monument of history and biography that was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, a renowned journalist tells the story of John Vann--the one irreplaceable American in Vietnam--and of the tragedy that destroyed a country and squandered so much of America's young manhood and resources.