A Bright Shining Lie

This narrative history follows John Paul Vann, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who later serves as a civilian adviser, through America's war in Vietnam. Sheehan reconstructs Vann's years in the Mekong Delta, his clashes with official optimism after early battles, and his later influence on pacification and command. Around that career the book maps the political and military machinery of Washington and Saigon, the limits of firepower against a rural insurgency, and the gap between reported progress and what officers on the ground could see. It is at once a biography of one soldier and an account of institutional self-deception in war.

Three-quarter bound in brown title blocked cloth, with B&W image printed cloth front boards. Brown endpapers. Brown slipcase printed with a wrap-around monochrome photo.