I recently took the time to read Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy and I began to question its merits as the go-to book on the French Indochina War in English.

For those who doesn't know, Bernard Fall was a political science student turned war correspondent after choosing Indochina as his field of research and travelling to Vietnam in 1953 to study the nation up close. While there, he quickly managed to get himself among the French soldiers waging war against the Viet Minh and his own diary entries (together with letters to his then-girlfriend but later wife) would make up the basis for what was to become Street Without Joy.

The book, which was released in 1961, is actually not an encompassing book nor is it anywhere close to trying to be a complete book on a conflict which was complicated enough to write about in 1961. The book is instead divided into several episodes covering some well known as well some unknown events of the war, with some chapters being completely based upon his own observations and diary entries from the field. While it makes for some interesting reading, is it really reliable history? Bernard Fall was not a historian and while he did base a good deal of what he wrote on primary sources as well as his own interviews, he doesn't take the time to source any of his claims (beyond sourcing quotes) and sometimes makes very dubious claims (such as claiming that Nazi German advisors were taken prisoner during Operation Lea in 1947. There is no proof at all that there were German military advisors in Indochina during WWII, not to mention afterwards). Bernard Fall is an excellent writer and engages his readers easily but the structure of the book leaves much to ask for. The background to the war is given in its most shallow shape and the chapters, including one on Dien Bien Phu, are likewise as short and easily digested - with all the problems it brings. No broader context is given, very little space is given to the perspective of the Viet Minh (for obvious reasons, finding primary source material on the Viet Minh must have been close to impossible at this time) and I imagine that anyone who reads this book without previous knowledge on the conflict would either be very confused or finish the book with a fragmentary understanding of the war.

If I had to draw a comparison, I would say that for those who study Cold War conflicts, Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy is our The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or perhaps Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - interesting out of a contemporary perspective (The use of the word 'red' is liberally splattered among the pages) to give us an idea of a feeling of impending doom from a man who had one foot in France and the other in the United States, slowly seeing his newly adopted country falling into the pitfalls that France had just gone through. The revised edition, released in 1964, makes this even more clearer since it includes tree new chapters on the conflict in Laos (1959-62), the early years of the insurgency in South Vietnam and on the concept of revolutionary warfare.

But as a history of the conflict, I would like to argue against those who see is as being a book with enduring value (some chapters definitely does, the chapters based entirely on his own experiences and interviews are clearly superior than those based on his research). A cursory reading of Amazon reviews of this book gives us a plethora of users writing on how the United States should have learned from the warnings of Bernard Fall - and while one is inclined to agree with them, the book itself is outdated by more than 40 years. The idea that the concepts and warnings written out by Bernard Fall in the book are still valid today and that those who 'does not learn from history are doomed to repeat it' (sigh) is simply not true. Both the writing and scholarship on counterinsurgency had come a long way since Bernard Fall (even at the time of the writing of Street Without Joy!) and Fall's own dismissal of the word 'counterinsurgency' in the 1964 edition is worrying. Fall's understanding of the concept of counterinsurgency is shallow at best and this is made very clear in the book in which the lessons shared are perhaps all too obvious to a contemporary reader with anything resembling to a previous understanding of counterinsurgency. His chapter on revolutionary warfare, while making some valid points, becomes almost laughable in light of modern scholarship (not to mention the chapter on South Vietnam and his criticism of the use of US special forces..).

In conclusion, Bernard Fall's book is a great contemporary journalistic account of the war in Indochina against the background of an increased insurgency in South Vietnam in 1960-61. As a history book, however, one is inclined to desire more from a man who makes it clear in his introduction to the book that he had access to very interesting and hard-to-get primary sources while he wrote the book yet makes no attempt to source anything (beyond a 'recommended reading list' at the end of the book). With dubious claims, a structure more based on episodes than chronology, lack of background and very outdated analysis of the conflict in Indochina (and, in the 1964 edition, of what was then the current conflict in South Vietnam) - we're unfortunately left with a book that for many became the only book they ever read on the subject. In contrast, Alistair Horne's Savage War of Peace is clearly superior in handling its task of writing a full history of the Algerian War and makes Street Without Joy pale in comparison. While Street Without Joy was published in 1961 (7 years after the end of the war) and Savage War of Peace was published in 1977 (15 years after the end of the war), there are plenty of more lessons to be drawn from the latter book and while Horne's book, being a historical work, lacks the journalistic point of view which has drawn so many to Fall's book, it still holds up after more than 30 years. This can't unfortunately be said about Street Without Joy.

I'm looking for some books to read on American foreign policy from independence to WWII. I have read LaFeber's American Age, but I found it to contain inaccuracies.

Also, if anyone could suggest some good books on American relations with Haiti, Mexico, and/or Korea from the same time period I would greatly appreciate it

Despite a busy schedule, I found myself with a bit of free time the past few weeks, so decided to read about something I wasn't well versed in. Seeing how its the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, I went and read At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-1916 by Tim Cook. Its the first of a two-part series Cook wrote about the Canadians in the First World War. As stated, I am not terribly familiar with this topic at all, so this is more a look at the writing itself and my impressions of it.

As Cook makes clear in his introduction, it is not an exhaustive look at Canada during the war. It solely focuses on the Canadian Corps, the army faction that fought; there is nothing about the air corps, navy, home front, and aside from brief mentions of Sam Hughes (minister of militia until 1916), no political details. As the title states, it starts from the Canadian entry into the war alongside the UK in 1914, and ends with the conclusion of the Battle of the Somme in October 1916.

The writing is very clear and straight-forward, and makes great use of quotations from memoirs and letters from soldiers at the front. Cook does a good job to present the horrors that the soldiers had to face, making constant references to the conditions of the trenches, often noting the presence of decaying bodies and human remains scattered about. Naturally, the artillery that characterised the front is also detailed, sometimes preceding the mention of the dead and wounded.

The individual is a constant theme throughout the book. As Cook makes heavy use of soldier's writings, he focuses on them at times; for example, in several instances he will go to lengths detailing how various soldiers acted during a battle, giving the reader a close-up perspective on how it felt. This has a certain effect, amplified as some of these accounts are closed by the somber note that the soldier was later wounded or, quite often, killed later on. Though Cook focuses on the front-line soldiers, he also takes time to detail the officer corps, noting the political aspects that gripped the leadership of the Canadian military to some extent.

Though heavily focused on the battles the Canadians took part in (Second Ypres, St. Julien, Festubert, Somme, to name some), Cook also spends a good amount detailing the other aspects of the war. Chapters explaining the construction and maintenance of the trench system, the rotation of units, their training, and the medical system are just some of the topics covered, giving a more rounded and nuanced impression of life for the soldiers.

I enjoyed the book, and though I don't know when I will get a chance, plan to purchase and read the second part. And if anyone specialised in the topic can tell me if this is actually a decent work or can provide better material, I'd be most grateful for that as well.

Is there a book that's considered the 'definitive' history of post independence Peru? The wiki only has books about Colombia and Argentina.

EDIT: By that I mean that the books my parents read in primary and secondary school seemed to aggrandize certain parts of history so it would be nice to read a book that gives a more level narrative of it's history.