Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu

EB: J. B. Lippincott. Very Good in Good+ dust jacket. 1966. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Published by J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, PA. 1966. 515 pgs. Map endpapers. IIllustrated with black and white photos. First Edition/First Printing. DJ has shelfwear present with sunning along the spine, rubbing present to the DJ especially around the extremitites. Bound in black cloth with red titles present to the spine. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards clean with no wear present. Like Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Midway, and Tet, the battle at Dien Bien Phu - a strategic attack launched by France against the Vietnamese in 1954 after eight long years of war - marked a historic turning point. By the end of the 56-day siege, a determined Viet Minh guerrilla force had destroyed a large tactical French colonial army in the heart of Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese victory would not only end French occupation of Indochina and offer a sobering premonition of the US' future military defeat in the region but would also provide a new model of modern warfare in which size and sophistication didn't always dictate victory. Before his death in Vietnam in 1967, Bernard Fall, a critically acclaimed scholar and reporter, drew upon declassified documents from the French Defense Ministry and interviews with thousands of surviving French and Vietnamese soldiers to weave a compelling account of the key battle of Dien Bien Phu. With Fall's thorough and insightful analysis, Hell in a Very Small Place has become one of the benchmarks in war reportage. EB; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 515 pages .