(Part 3) Best african-american & black biographies according to redditors
We found 1,010 Reddit comments discussing the best african-american & black biographies. We ranked the 399 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
> The fact that the Daily Mail's story proved to be defamatory is irrelevant
This is liberals folks. The court of law is a fucking joke to them. No wonder they can't figure anything out. They're so based in the "feels" world that real stats, real laws, and real ANYTHING is a fucking scary insurmountable obstacle to them.
Any idea how many books Obama and Michelle slung while in office, shit for brains?
Any idea how they managed to grow their net worth to the tune of MILLIONS while in office ?!
https://www.amazon.com/American-Grown-Kitchen-Gardens-America/dp/0307956024
https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Obama-Speeches-American-Values/dp/0982375638
https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Obama-her-Own-Words/dp/1586487620
Eat a fucking cock dude. You got grifted by the First Man.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/01/20/how-barack-obama-has-made-20-million-since-arriving-in-washington/#125be4e45bf0
Meanwhile the Trumps are dumping everything they got into the US and little trolls like you who couldn't pay taxes if your life depended on it are literally mocking immigrants with your greasy racist hands all a twitter.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/17/news/trump-billionaires-forbes-richest-americans/index.html
You can read it here
Il y a plein d'ouvrages si tu veux te documenter sur le sujet :
Je te conseille déjà l'excellent Peau noire, masques blancs de Frantz Fanon.
Tu peux aussi t'intéresser à la littérature d'Aimé Césaire. (EDIT : là c'est une explication de texte, je viens de voir, pas le texte lui-même. Rien qu'un peu de Google ne puisse régler, ceci dit).
Si tu veux approfondir avec quelque chose de plus contemporain, Codes Noirs de Christiane Taubira donne aussi quelques pistes.
Sans oublier évidemment les inébranlables Martin Luther King et Malcolm X pour avoir quelques pistes de l'autre côté de l'Atlantique (où c'est évidemment différent, mais beaucoup d'aspects se retrouvent finalement).
Bonne lecture !
"I hope I live long enough to read her book."
Lucky you, she already has one:
https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Obama-her-Own-Words/dp/1586487620
On CBS Sunday Morning they did a piece on this memorial. The designer received inspiration from the cover of his autobiography.
This guys story is amazing, definitely read his book if you can!
https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Does-Shine-Freedom-Selection/dp/1250124719
Yeah.
>While the ethical reasons for the FBI’s monitoring of King were murky (at best), the recordings do make up much of what we now know about the man’s personal life. King had engaged in so many extramarital affairs that his wife, Coretta Scott King, had reportedly become disillusioned with their marriage.
>
>FBI monitoring devices recorded audio of King during a tryst at a Washington, D.C., hotel, eventually sending the tape to Mrs. King in an effort to discredit him in his own home. King even spent the last night of his life with a woman who was not his wife. In the chaos outside the Lorraine Motel, his advisers told the young woman to stay out of the ambulance to avoid tarnishing his legacy.
>
>King’s right-hand man, Ralph Abernathy, wrote in his 1989 autobiography that the staff “all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation.” Abernathy also wrote that King had a “weakness for women” while Johnson – who considered King’s criticism of Vietnam a personal betrayal – called him a “hypocritical preacher.”
If anyone wants to read about the black soldiers of WWII, and the issues which came associated with their skin color, then I highly recommend the following Brothers in Arms book. It tells the story of the 761 Tank battalion through their battles at The Great Bulge, as well as other skirmishes.
https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Arms-Battalion-Forgotten-Heroes/dp/0767909135
The next three are to give you a better view of the game from the players/owners perspective.
Now available at Amazon!
why don't you read some slave narratives.
There are FOUR narratives in this book they're all in the public domain so you can find them on Project Gutenberg.
Why are you so sure Michelle 'abused her status'? Did you check to see if the profits benefited a cause close to her heart?
Since Michelle Obama never otherwise 'abused her status' and was an exemplary first lady, I bet this was the case.
Further, you said 'books'. I only found one book on amazon, and that only included Obama as one of two authors because it was a compilation of quotes by her, taken from newspapers etc. and compiled into categories by the other author.
https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Obama-her-Own-Words/dp/1586487620/ref=la_B004B0TWTK_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486476617&sr=1-1
The current work by Timothy Sandefur on Frederick Douglass certainly suggests a strong libertarian bent on his view of life. Further, many of Douglass’ works focus on the very point of my post.
I think it depends on the definition of libertarian, and this subreddit is a strong indication that this definition is hardly a consensus.
https://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Douglass-Self-Made-Timothy-Sandefur/dp/1944424857
I said this a minute ago in another thread, but The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski is fantastic. He follows Buck O'Neil (who all but created the Negro League Museum here in KC on his own) on a road trip. It gave me a whole new perspective on baseball and the Negro Leagues. Buck was known for his crazy stories, and you'll get a ton of them.
Could it be this?
If you want to learn more about Buck, I highly recommend reading his autobiography and then following it up with Joe Posnanski's The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America. The autobiography is a quick, easy read and you'll learn Buck's story as well as the story of the Negro Leagues in general. But I recommend following it with Posnanski's book to really get to know Buck as a person. Posnanski traveled around the country with Buck for a year towards the end of Buck's life and wrote this book about the experience. While some of the stories from the autobiography are retold, Posnanski's book functions more as a portrait of the man than simply a history. I really can't say enough about this book. It will make you laugh and cry, etc., etc. Just read it. And then spend the rest of your life wishing you could have given Buck O'Neil a hug.
I always stick to 3 books at a time.
Main:
Jurassic Park by Michael Critchon. I love this book. I have about 9% left and will finish it during bedtime tonight. Crazy thing is everyone tells me The Lost World is the superior novel. Will start on it after I'm done with this.
Secondary:
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway. Gustavo is just getting his fish to bite. It's okay. I don't have a ton of time to read it, but once it's my main book, I'm sure I'll put a lot more time into it.
Just Starting:
Slobberknocker: My Life in Wrestling by Jim Ross**.** I'm a huge wrestling fan, and this is the autobiography of Jim Ross, a man that has been in the business for many decades. I am only a few pages in, but I know I will kill this book in a few days once this is my main book.
Next Books to Start:
The Lost World by Michael Crichton
Without Remorse by Tom Clancy
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (Suggested by a Reddit User's post)
Note: I DO NOT have an Amazon Associates account so I do not get any income if you click on the link or not. I just wanted to make things easier for anyone who may wish to purchase or get more info without copying and pasting into google and whatnot. :-)
Mike Tyson's autobiography (well, he had a ghostwriter), Undisputed Truth, is a goldmine of funny phrases. Maybe they're all out there already but it's also a really interesting and honest look at the man's life. And he doesn't ask you to like him, which is pretty brave. I read the whole book and I don't like him at all, but I understand why he is the way he is. In my opinion it's required reading if you have any interest in human stories.
http://smile.amazon.com/Undisputed-Truth-Mike-Tyson-ebook/dp/B00BC254I8/
I recommend the book The Fiery Trial by Foner on Lincoln's developing views on slavery. When he entered the White House, he considered slavery deeply immoral, and a stain on the national character. But he also saw no way to legally end slavery. Only when the war drug out and the South wouldn't come back into the Union did he see the opportunity provided. I too am from the South, and I'm familiar with all the arguments as to why it wasn't "really" about slavery. Lincoln waged war to protect and preserve the Union, but the South seceded over slavery. So the war did boil down to slavery.
I would guess that fantasy/SF isn't a good choice, despite a number of good suggestions here. I find that the reading tastes of many urban teens is much more concrete - reading about "made up stuff" often isn't appealing. Memoirs, auto/biographies and the like work out well.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an underappreciated story that might appeal to them. You might also consider The Outsiders - it has been receiving some rave reviews from 9th graders who liked it in 8th grade and disliked The Giver (which I do like). How old are they?
>I don't know how you can agree that only wealthy white men's views were reflected in the media yet at the same time claim that most southerner's supported slavery. How do you know they did?
Well, I would like to the think the fact that it existed as being a pretty clear example. But not only that , if you where white and tried to help slaves you would be killed. In fact most white abolitionist had to move north. But this is a rather moot point. The south for the most part wanted it.
We know this because so many families owned them. In Alabama and Mississippi close to 50% of households had slaves. ( Which shouldn't matter as it was law)
Have you spoken to them? Is anyone alive that has spoken to them?
Actually, the last American slave died in 1971 read that again......... 1971.....
We also have one of my favorite collection of books.....slave narratives... yes actually live recordings of former slaves. Some of them could speak several languages FROM AFRICA
It seems all we have left to document people's views is old media, which was controlled by a select few.
Most of the slave narratives where a collection published well after they died or where very old. Some Slave narratives was done by the Harvard purely for racist reasons. and the families never got paid.
​
In other words, most common people's views simply did not survive their death, unlike today, where the Internet archives people's views, not just a select few.
What does this even mean? We weren't around????? So I guess photos,audio, hell even video doesn't prove it eh?
BTW...just because you cant intellectually defend racism doesn't make my statements any less correct. My Saracsm is merely for extra spice.
I answered a similar (though not exact) question Thomas Jefferson's relationship with other slaves that may be of help. I'm going to use part of my answer from there, on here, since I talk about the frequency of sexual relationships between enslaved women and white men.
There was definitely a large number of enslaved women who had a sexual relationship with white men, most likely owners or relations of their owners. Often times this did result in the birth of children between the two. Historians have discussed this many times over the last century. Articles like this one actually show quite well how common sexual contact between white male owners and female enslaved women resulted in the birth of illegitimate children, stating, “Sexual abuse of slave women was extremely common, and the victims experienced no justice.”
One of the most earliest, and arguably most significant works about this type of abuse was the narrative account by a former slave named Jarriet Jacobs. Her account, entitled, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was published in 1861, and was the first time that, in print, it accounted for how slave owners sexually abused those whom they enslaved. History would show that this account was far from uncommon, and historians showed, especially throughout the 1970s and 1980s (as original research heavily studied this field) that it was extremely common and that apparently everyone turned a blind eye to it.
The reasons that slave owners did this, apart from the sexual gratification, was to punish and assert control over enslaved women. (Women and Slavery - Boundless Open Textbook. Boundless U.S. History. 2015). But enslaved women also were not viewed as humans, but rather a commodity. As Jacobs recalled in her account, “women are considered of no value, unless they continuously increase their owner’s stock. They are put on a par with animals.”(page 49). This is significant because it then became common for male owners to try and get their slaves pregnant in order to sell the offspring later, if she wasn't already having sex with other enslaved men.
You asked if this was frowned upon, and in many ways, yes it was, at least publicly. We do know that it happened, and we have various accounts in letters between white men that they at times discussed it, but it wasn't something that people largely boasted about in public. As /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov pointed out in this this post, it was largely swept under the rug, where white society largely pretended it didn't happen.
Theres this book about a african american who moves to africa, cant remember the name but its been mentioned here.
Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Out-America-Black-Confronts-Africa/dp/0465001882
This is true; there was a great book titled "Out of Aflmerica" or something similar, and it detailed a black journalists' experiences throughout the roughest parts in Africa.
It's funny, because he was criticized for being racist, when that's exactly the victim mentality he was fighting against.
Edit: here it is https://www.amazon.com/Out-America-Black-Confronts-Africa/dp/0465001882
I always recommend this book when it comes to good baseball books - I was right on time by Buck O'Neil - He covers a long time and tells some really cool stories about the Negro Leagues as well. - https://www.amazon.com/Was-Right-Time-Buck-Oneil/dp/068483247X
I’ve read her book she released in 2012, and I absolutely agree. Comparing her to Renee Bach is quite lazy...they actually represent quite well opposite ends of altruism IMO.
King Papers Publications
King's Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity and Transformation
New York Times" of October 11, 1991, page 15 (Visit your local university as it isn't online)
"The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.", David J. Garrow, (1981).
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography
Here: https://www.amazon.com/Stamped-Beginning-Definitive-History-National/dp/1568585985
If you're really passionate about this mess, you can invest some time and learn a thing or two.
His biography, Undisputed Truth, is one of the best - https://www.amazon.com/Undisputed-Truth-Mike-Tyson-ebook/dp/B00BC254I8
Very, very raw. Undisputed Truth and Art of the Deal should be on every bookshelf.
Brothers in Arms could make a good movie or series, kind of mirroring Band of Brothers.
Convicted murderers would stay in prison for the rest of their lives, just like in every civilized country in the world.
The government should not be allowed to murder people outside of war, full stop. The government should not be allowed to torture people, or to imprison people with no charges or due process. We need to expect more and value life more.
The US has the death penalty, and it is completely corrupt. I recently read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Does-Shine-Freedom-Selection/dp/1250124719/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1569585926&sr=8-1 , about an innocent man who was on death row for 30 years. I will never be able to support the death penalty anywhere. Do you think that Egypt can do it better?
> Societal injustices can't exist without many individual racist people in my opinion.
Inertia is a powerful thing.
And some have fairly persuasively argued that racist ideology comes from racist policy, not the inverse. That is, North Americans were able to enslave a continent of humans and force them to work... and so developed an ideology to justify what they had done. (Actually the book linked above is really wonderful. Look into it if you're curious about this topic.)
> So I understand your viewpoint clearly, you don't think any individuals of any race can be racist - only prejudiced, right?
I don't know. My viewpoint is that it's not so much about individual animus. I think that when we speculate about the hearts of others, it's usually misplaced. When two black men are asked to leave Starbucks for simply sitting quietly at a table and waiting for their friend... that is racist. But whether the manager who asked them to leave "is racist" or not... I just don't think that's a useful road to go down.
It's an 'investigation non-fiction' title meaning the author uses real information to backup their hypothesis. The book is a decent read though and maybe it's not for me to say since this is /r/rant but my dad did that with me too once, looking back I remember being insulted, angry, and just in general really mad at my dad, now I think "that was a good book and I'm glad he called me out in his own way".
You won't find a better book than this: a memoir written by a top official in both the south Vietnamese govt and later communist government. This is a great book for novice and expert readers alike. One of my favorite memoirs on any subject! You're in for a treat!
http://www.amazon.com/Vietcong-Memoir-Account-Vietnam-Aftermath/dp/0394743091
Keith Richbourg (black American that worked in newspaper) wrote a book about that...
Out Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465001882/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jvUNBbKP6S74R
Dude kissed the ground when he landed back on American soil.
The book is Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, to those wondering.
Again, to anyone reading this questioning whether they should continue their education - I point you to these comments.
These are the thoughts of someone who is intellectually bankrupt. I can't imagine the anguish and utter hell you must live in, to be either fully incapable or fully uninterested in learning a bare bones outline of the history of the last century. But then again, they say ignorance is bliss.
Wikipedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia with exclusively free content and no ads. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Walters
Further reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Anne-Frank-Diary-Young-Girl/dp/0553296981/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2BGTU1OTLE40S&keywords=anne+frank+diary+of+a+young+girl&qid=1556809315&s=gateway&sprefix=anne+frank%2Caps%2C186&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Martin-Luther-King-Jr/dp/0446676500/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=martin+luther+king+jr+biography&qid=1556809342&s=gateway&sr=8-2
No, it's been a month, and people and media and politicians would be catching on faster if you had less problems and more solutions.
It's so stressful to hear people justifying the disjointed state of OWS when there is so much at stake. I want to quote the entirety of MLK's Why We Can't Wait right now.
I just saw this man speak at my college and he really seems to be enjoying life. He just released a book that is being turned into a movie soon.
Edit: his book is called the sun does shine. he talks about some pretty deep stuff, like how he makes friends with a former Kkk member who was on death row for murdering somone because his father ordered it.
the book can be found here https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Does-Shine-Freedom-Selection/dp/1250124719
Read Why Black People Tend to Shout by Ralph Wiley. It will answer your questions.
I suggest doing a biography on a no-name character witness to a major event. The people that usually get picked to read are war leaders, politicians and religious figures, yet the experiences of the 'common man' are often much more representative to what the majority of people went through at that time.
I have read amazing books about Maria Rosa Henson who was a sex slave used by the Japanese in the Pacific War, Richard Glazar an inmate of the Treblinka concentration camp, and Harriet Jacobs an African American slave.
These all are autobiographies and are wonderfully written, yet many people have never heard, much less read, about these amazing people and what they went through.
EDIT: spelling
Right and now in the U.S. we are starting to have people who are questioning the system of Capitalism. 'Trying to organize coups or revolutions, etc is just a try for control. It is a positive action in the big picture'. Who are we in the U.S. to be financing coups and revolutions in other countries we have no control over? Just look up who Flugencio Batista was where he was a U.S. backed dictator. Yes he was a political prisoner just read the book The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. he was arrested for violating the laws of segregation and was labeled a 'communist' on multiple occasions.
Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man by Timothy Sandefur
Short & great
Manchild in the Promised Land to this day, this is still by far one of the most brilliant books I have ever read. I subconsciously thank my English teacher every so often for making us read this little gem.
This isn’t a good look for you.
Try reading a book.
https://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Douglass-Self-Made-Timothy-Sandefur/dp/1944424857
Or even a speech by the great American you disdain.
http://www.amazon.com/Vietcong-Memoir-Account-Vietnam-Aftermath/dp/0394743091
I assume you are talking about this book. It is an interesting read and he covers multiple viewpoints. I highly recommend it.
James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is immediately the first book that comes to mind. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it is “the book” to read on the Civil War. It is a highly readable account of the build-up to the Civil War, causes, and the war itself. It also won a Pulitzer Prize. For more, I’d also check out Ta-Nehisi Coate’s online book club on Battle Cry of Freedom over at The Atlantic.
Other excellent works on the period I would recommend are:
Also, the Civil War produced some of the greatest memoirs in American letters:
And, I always recommend reading poetry and fiction, so I would also encourage you to look at Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, as well as the war poetry of Walt Whitman and Herman Melville, particularly Melville’s poem The Martyr, written days after Lincoln’s assassination. More contemporary fiction would be Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, or EL Doctorow’s The March.
Finally, check out David Blight’s Open Yale Lectures on the Civil War. Prof. Blight is a fantastic lecturer. They are free, and the course syllabus is online, and in 26 hours you can take a full Yale course completely on your own.
Mike Tyson did not get a fair trial or appeal in the Indiana justice system. Check out: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qlRawW--T24
Read the Indiana Court of Appeal decision upholding his conviction on a 2-1 basis for the legal nuance: see footnote 68 on wikipedia page (in this thread).
At the trial he was done in by a less than stellar job by defence counsel at trial (who was not a criminal defence lawyer, he was Tyson's tax attorney ffs): http://articles.courant.com/1992-02-13/sports/0000205854_1_tyson-s-attorney-mike-tyson-rape-trial-prosecutor-j-gregory
There was also more than just a tinge of racism that pervaded over the course of all the proceedings. Plus, Tyson then was not the Tyson of today. He was brash, crude, arrogant, etc and totally lacking in the humility we see today.
Had the trial been fair and all of the relevant evidence admitted he ought to have been acquitted as there was a reasonable doubt based on the eye-witnesses who contradicted the complainant and the fact she had a prior history of false complaints.
I think these facts and legal issues, his subsequent conversion, change in personality, his admitting a number of negative aspects of his prior life in his [biography]http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00BC254I8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1) (plus the passage of time AND the fact that he still adamantly denies this event still, points to him not doing it.
here's a few that would absolutely blow the mind of anyone who thinks the civil war mostly ended our oppression of black americans and afforded them anything remotely resembling equality.
for starters...
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
> Douglas A. Blackmon exposes the horrific aftermath of the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery, when thousands of black people were unfairly arrested and then illegally “sold” into forced labor as punishment.
> “When white Americans frankly peel back the layers of our commingled pasts, we are all marked by it. Whether a company or an individual, we are marred either by our connections to the specific crimes and injuries of our fathers and their fathers. Or we are tainted by the failures of our fathers to fulfill our national credos when their courage was most needed. We are formed in molds twisted by the gifts we received at the expense of others. It is not our ‘fault.’ But it is undeniably our inheritance.”
there's tons of awfulness in more modern times as well...
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
or...
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
and if you really don't want to recognize your old self...
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
anyways
i'd be shocked if you're actually interested in reading about this and not just posturing over it but good on you if so.
There is an awesome book called Kisses from Katie about how Katie moved to Uganda and started her orphanage called Amazima (which means truth). She also maintains a blog which can be found here.
Hey bud, can we pretend I wasn't a dick and continue this conversation? I know I didn't represent myself well, but I was genuinely curious as to how one can come to the conclusions that you have. Like I said earlier, I am a big fan of Lincoln and I just came across this book written by Eric Foner (the same author of the history textbook that I linked) called The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery and was wondering if you have read it as it seems to hold the same view as I've had and has won multiple awards including the Pulitzer Prize. I find myself wondering if my point wasn't made well and there was a misunderstanding in which you thought I was trying to say that Lincoln went from being a fan of slavery to being an abolitionist. I am definitely not saying that, and I'm sorry if I made it seem that way. All I was trying to say was that Lincoln, in so few words, went from being ok with letting slavery just kind of eventually die off on its own accord to being an abolitionist who believed slavery needed to be ended now. The South was more about fighting the Civil War to keep their slaves via individual state's rights, but Lincoln was more about fighting to keep the Union in tact than it was about slavery, but that isn't to say he didn't care a great deal about slavery, he just cared more about the sanctity of our union. I believe the source you provided supports that last sentence, but I admit I could have some other things wrong.
I dunno dude, this whole interaction just never sat well with me. If I argued my point so poorly that you felt comfortable inferring I was racist, then I must have really fucked up. I'm sorry for not considering earlier that I wrote my arguments poorly. I care enough to write this almost a month later and with my tail between my legs. I admittedly am not a historian, but I do enjoy history and if I have something wrong about one of my favorite political figures of all time, I'd really like to know.
Hope you can sense my sincerity in this. I genuinely want to respectfully discuss the history as I'm running into conflicting sources and am left scratching my head a bit.
It's Still in print? http://www.amazon.com/Why-Black-People-Tend-Shout/dp/0140168532
You:
>Your assertion that a majority of the South was for communism is absurd.
Me:
>the hearts and minds of the majority of the people were with the north (not because of communism, but because of independence).
I'm sorry, I stopped reading there. Perhaps the rest of your argument isn't a strawman and is cohesive and historically informed, but I am doubting it.
Edit: Fuck it, I'll reply.
> Added to the fact that after Tet, the Viet Cong basically ceased to exist.
The fact that you confuse the Viet Cong with the People's Army of Vietnam is the first red flag in your argument. The Viet Cong most definitely did not cease to exist or even come close to ceasing to exist. PAVN took a hell of a beating, but as I said the war in Viet Nam was not being decided by conventional military anyway, it was one of guerilla warfare and hearts and minds.
>but areas under allied control remained quite loyal.
Not at all true, even back in 1961 the U.S. and Diem knew that they had no control of the countryside, and attempted to defeat guerrilla insurgency in the south with the Strategic Hamlet Program. Using this program, they created one barricaded and fortified village per an area and made all the surrounding villages' villagers have to live in this village and sleep there at night, far from their farms and ancestral homelands. Oh, and by "they created" I mean they forced those villagers to build their own prison. Is this the type of desperate program you have if your citizens are loyal and controlled? They tried to justify this program under the guise of "protecting the villagers from the guerrillas", but this backfired as the villagers were the guerrillas or friends of the guerrillas and did not fear them nearly as much as the US military and ARVN's pillaging. And disloyalty only became worse since then.
Also, this shows how little the South had under control even in their own regime, as the idea came to fruition under encouragement by top level NLF spies in Diem's government who wanted to sabotage the south's reputation.
>Further, most of the Southern civilians fighting 'for' the North were forcibly recruited with terror tactics
Not at all, the NLF practically started in the South. And the NLF for a very long time was completely separate from the Ho Chi Minh government, so I don't see how you could argue that it was Northern threats that created the southern resistance. I very much recommend you read source materials actually from Vietnam rather than American military history, such as Vietcong Memoir. In this, you will see that the south was barely held together by Ngô Đình Diệm's power consolidation. All of Viet Nam, the so called "North" and "South", wanted a unified country and independence. They both claimed sovereignty over the whole land, neither side ever claimed it was anything other than a civil war. This want for independence and escape from outside influence is why so many in Cochinchina resented the puppet state and heavy-handed political control of the U.S. and French, whether they cared for Communism or not.
Ho Chi Minh himself saw unification as his primary goal and communism as his secondary goal. Ngô Đình Diệm, who was held up by fraudulent elections and the U.S., was the antithesis of the idea of an independent Viet Nam, which is why so much of the south resented him. When he was overthrown (with the explicit backing of the U.S.) and a new leader was put in place, that was the end for the U.S.'s chance of winning the war. Few saw the south as having legitimate claim to a truly independent Viet Nam before, and with the new U.S. condoned power grab and the U.S.'s refusal for statewide elections all shreds of legitimacy were destroyed. No amount of military force could have changed that.
>something repeated on a large scale in Cambodia and Khmer Rouge.
The fact that you compare the wartime Viet Cong to the Khmer Rouge is absurd. The Viet Cong could be heavy handed (nowhere near as heavy as Diem's south though), but what the Khmer Rouge did was absolutely insane and not even close to the same level. In fact, the Viet Cong barely had an alliance with them because of this and as soon the U.S. war ended Viet Nam went straight to war with Cambodia to remove those crazies. What you are doing is like comparing McCarthy America to the Holocaust; both are bad, but there is just no comparison.
I have studied Vietnamese history for a while in Viet Nam, so I am not at all surprised by the attitude that Americans just needed a little more time and military force to win the war. And also the idea that there was a unified south and a unified north fighting each other and thinking in terms of separate states. You can take a lot of U.S. based classes and read a lot of books and come away thinking that, but the truth is the U.S. dropped more heavy weapons and military might on that little country for the duration of it's longest war in our history (not counting our current wars) and was still no where close to winning it's goal of having a U.S. friendly state in Vietnam.
This is not directly related, but i highly recommend it:
http://www.amazon.com/Manchild-Promised-Land-Claude-Brown/dp/0684864185
It's more historical than what you may be looking for, but Nixon in China is a really interesting look at what is, probably, Nixon's greatest achievement as president.
Also Obama's The Audacity of Hope is great, but not as well-regarded as his previous work Dreams from my Father.
I read books about baseball during the offseason. Just picked up [The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America] (http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Baseball-Through-ONeils-America/dp/0060854049/ref=la_B001ILHF9Y_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415033761&sr=1-1) by Joe Posnanski and Up, Up, and Away: The Kid, the Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, le Grand Orange, Youppi!, the Crazy Business of Baseball, and the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos by Jonah Keri from my library.
I'm sure you've read "The Soul of Baseball" but if you haven't, you should.
If you like this kind of stuff you should check one of my favorite non-fiction books. I picked this up randomly at the store, mainly because the first chapter was really engaging to me. the first chapter is a forward flash (i think you can read it on amazon) so you get back story in the following chapters.
Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes
http://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Arms-Battalion-Forgotten-Heroes/dp/0767909135
Maybe not every time.
There's a passage in a well-known book published many years ago, Manchild In The Promised Land, where the author talks about being a teenager growing up in Harlem. His father had warned him that if you're ever in a fight and you break the other guy's nose, and he just sniffs real hard and keeps his fists up, then you're in a lot of trouble, because you have a real fighter on your hands.
Of course, in the book the author does get into a scrape and this does happen. And, of course, he had a real fighter on his hands.
It's something to keep in mind.
Well... whether you believe it's "utopian" or "just requires more patience" probably depends on which side of the oppression you stand on.