Review: Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu that Led America into the Vietnam War

Morgan brings to the writing of his history an unusual combination of French roots and both military and journalistic experience [which imbue] his work with a granularity absent from the usual analyses of Vietnam…Morgan describes the day-to-day course of the battle, giving play to the perspectives of both sides. There was no want of heroism and gallantry: if the Vietnamese were fighting for their country, the French were trying to reclaim la gloire tarnished by the ignominy of the defeat by Nazi Germany and Vichy collaboration…

Dien Bien Phu may well be ‘one of the great epics of military endurance', one whose heroic grandeur is superbly recorded in Morgan's meticulous work, but it was also a tragedy. Soldiers ‘were sent to die in battle by politicians who have never seen combat'-leaders unwilling, and perhaps even unable, to listen to those who had.