A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (Pulitzer Prize Winner) - Paperback

by Neil Sheehan (Author)

One of the most acclaimed books of our time--the definitive Vietnam War exposé and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

When he came to Vietnam in 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and self-deception, a charismatic soldier who put his life and career on the line in an attempt to convince his superiors that the war should be fought another way. By the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. He died believing that the war had been won.

In this magisterial book, a monument of history and biography that was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, a renowned journalist tells the story of John Vann--"the one irreplaceable American in Vietnam"--and of the tragedy that destroyed a country and squandered so much of America's young manhood and resources.

Front Jacket

Sheehan's tragic biography of John Paul Vann is also a sweeping history of America's seduction, entrapment and disillusionment in Vietnam.

Author Biography

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.