Neil Sheehan is the author of A Fiery Peace in a Cold War. He spent three years in Vietnam as a war correspondent for United Press International and The New York Times and won numerous awards for his reporting. In 1971 he obtained the Pentagon Papers, which brought The New York Times the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for meritorious public service. His book A Bright Shining Lie won the National Book Award in 1988 and the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1989. He died in 2021.
"Masterly. . . . One of the few brilliant histories of the American
entanglement in Vietnam." --The New York Times
"A brilliant work of enormous substance and ambition. In telling
one man's story [A Bright Shining Lie] sets out to define the fatal
contradictions that lost America the war in Vietnam. It belongs to
the same order of merit as Dispatches, The Best and the Brightest,
and Fire in the Lake." --Robert Stone, Washington Post Book
World
"A compelling, graphic, and deeply sensitive biography [and] one of
the few brilliant histories of the American enthanglement in
Vietnam. . . . Sheehan's skillful weaving of anecdote and history,
of personal memoir and psychological profile, give the book the
sense of having been written by a novelist, journalist, and scholar
all rolled up into one." --David Shipler, The New York Times
"If there is one book that catpures the Vietnam War in the sheer
Homeric scale of its passion and folly, this book is it. Neil
Sheehan orchestrates a great fugue evoking all the elements of the
war." --Ronald Steel, The New York Times Book Review
"An unforgettable narrative, a chronicle grand enough to suit the
crash and clangors of whole armies. A Bright Shining Lie is a very
great piece of work; its rewards are aesthetic and . . . almost
spiritual." --The New York Review of Books
"Enormous power . . . full of great accomplishments . . . Neil
Sheehan has written not only the best book ever about Vietnam, but
the timeliest." --Newsweek
"It is difficult to believe that anyone will write a more gripping
or important book on America's war in Vietnam than A Bright Shining
Lie, a towering book that has been 16 years in the making. . . .
Sheehan shows, perhaps more convincingly than anyone else who has
written on the subject, that our intervention in Vietnam was in
fact a terrible blunder, damaging to America and devastating to the
Vietnamese and the other people of Indochina--a mistake as tragic
as it was unnecessary." --Detroit News
"[A Bright Shining Lie] is more than a biography. It is also a
compelling and clear hstiroy of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Mr.
Sheehan's book . . . is the best answer to any American who asks:
'How could this have happened?'" --Wall Street Journal
"Using the life of one man as his framework, Neil Sheehan has
written the best book on America's involvement in Vietnam since
Frances FitzGerald's Fire in the Lake." --Kirkus Reviews
"One of the milestones in the literature about the war. . . . In
these times, a readable book about the Vietnam war, like any other
clear warning, is worth its weight in life." --Christian Science
Monitor
Killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1972, controversial Lt. Col. John Paul Vann was perhaps the most outspoken army field adviser to criticize the way the war was being waged. Appalled by the South Vietnamese troops' unwillingness to fight and their random slaughter of civilians, he flouted his supervisors and leaked his sharply pessimistic (and, as it turned out, accurate) assessments to the U.S. press corps in Saigon. Among them was Sheehan, a reporter for UPI and later the New York Times (for whom he obtained the Pentagon Papers). Sixteen years in the making, writing and re search, this compelling 768-page biography is an extraordinary feat of reportage: an eloquent, disturbing portrait of a man who in many ways personified the U.S. war effort. Blunt, idealistic, patronizing to the Vietnamese, Vann firmly believed the U.S. could win; as Sheehan limns him, he was ultimately caught up in his own illusions. The author weaves into one unified chronicle an account of the Korean War (in which Vann also fought), the story of U.S. support for French colonialism, descriptions of military battles, a critique of our foreign policy and a history of this all-American boy's secret personal liehe was illegitimate, his mother a ``white trash'' prostitutethat led him to recklessly gamble away his career. 100,000 first printing; first serial to the New Yorker; BOMC main selection ; a uthor tour. (October)
"Masterly. . . . One of the few brilliant histories of the
American entanglement in Vietnam." --The New York Times
"A brilliant work of enormous substance and ambition. In
telling one man's story [A Bright Shining Lie] sets out to
define the fatal contradictions that lost America the war in
Vietnam. It belongs to the same order of merit as
Dispatches, The Best and the Brightest, and Fire
in the Lake." --Robert Stone, Washington Post Book
World
"A compelling, graphic, and deeply sensitive biography [and] one of
the few brilliant histories of the American enthanglement in
Vietnam. . . . Sheehan's skillful weaving of anecdote and history,
of personal memoir and psychological profile, give the book the
sense of having been written by a novelist, journalist, and scholar
all rolled up into one." --David Shipler, The New York Times
"If there is one book that catpures the Vietnam War in the
sheer Homeric scale of its passion and folly, this book is it. Neil
Sheehan orchestrates a great fugue evoking all the elements of the
war." --Ronald Steel, The New York Times Book Review
"An unforgettable narrative, a chronicle grand enough to
suit the crash and clangors of whole armies. A Bright Shining
Lie is a very great piece of work; its rewards are aesthetic
and . . . almost spiritual." --The New York Review of Books
"Enormous power . . . full of great accomplishments . . .
Neil Sheehan has written not only the best book ever about Vietnam,
but the timeliest." --Newsweek
"It is difficult to believe that anyone will write a more gripping
or important book on America's war in Vietnam than A Bright
Shining Lie, a towering book that has been 16 years in the
making. . . . Sheehan shows, perhaps more convincingly than anyone
else who has written on the subject, that our intervention in
Vietnam was in fact a terrible blunder, damaging to America and
devastating to the Vietnamese and the other people of Indochina--a
mistake as tragic as it was unnecessary." --Detroit News
"[A Bright Shining Lie] is more than a biography. It is also
a compelling and clear hstiroy of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Mr.
Sheehan's book . . . is the best answer to any American who asks:
'How could this have happened?'" --Wall Street Journal
"Using the life of one man as his framework, Neil Sheehan
has written the best book on America's involvement in Vietnam since
Frances FitzGerald's Fire in the Lake." --Kirkus
Reviews
"One of the milestones in the literature about the war. . . . In
these times, a readable book about the Vietnam war, like any other
clear warning, is worth its weight in life." --Christian Science
Monitor
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