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Giap: The Victor in Vietnam
Here, for the first time, is the full story of the general who humbled both the French and the Americans in Vietnam. In 1990 Peter Macdonald went to Hanoi at the invitation of the Vietnamese government to interview General Vo Nguyen Giap, the legendary commander of the Vietnamese Army who had crushed the French at Dien Bien Phu and stymied the Americans at Khe Sanh. Never before had a western writer been offered the opportunity to study the Indochina and Vietnam wars from the Vietnamese point of view, to examine in detail how an army so poor in material resources accomplished such miracles. In addition to his interviews with Giap, Macdonald spent time with Vietnamese Army serving officers, interviewed many veterans and civilians, and had access to a wealth of written and photographic sources. Subsequently, he interviewed General Marcelle Bigeard, the only senior French officer to survive the great battle at Dien Bien Phu, and General William C. Westmoreland, the American commander in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968. Out of this research comes a balanced, fascinating portrait of one of the greatest military commanders of all time - from his early days as a resistance fighter against the Japanese through the brilliant campaigns against the French and Americans that established his reputation. Giap: The Victor in Vietnam tells the story of the longest - and perhaps strangest - war of the twentieth century, as seen through the eyes of its brilliant, enigmatic, and ultimately triumphant commander.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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December 15, 2025My Father served in her Britannic Majesty's fleet in the 60s and into the start of the 70s. One of the aspects of the service that troubled him sufficiently that he mentioned it to me when I was a child, was that while in the far East, service personnel from nations participating in the Vietnam war would make, no doubt, pointed and ribald, political commentary touching on the evident lack of proper virility and the sartorial deficiencies of British service personnel on account of the UK government's unwilingness to demonstrate a properly manly commitment to world peace by fighting in Vietnam.
This left my father, aside perhaps from shame and guilt, since he would have been in his teen-aged years at the time , with a curiosity in the conflict which led to his owning nearly a shelf full of books on the subject, naturally since misleading statistics are deeply concerning I realised this was a silly thing to think let alone type, since shelves can be long and short, so I got out a tape measure and found he had one metre nineteen centimetres on the topic or as we say about 47 inches in old money. Obviously since I haven't measured the rest of his book collection, yet, this figure stands without comparison, nor have I calculated approximately how many words we are talking about since books with their different formats, paper thicknesses and font sizes are also pretty variable. So this 119 centimetres is a pretty unhelpful kind of statistic . Anyhow what with no shelf being safe from my depredations and this being one of the few books on that shelf that piqued my interest, I read it.
Over the last couple of decades we've all seen more than enough on the television about how wealthy, powerful countries, with sophisticated militaries have failed to achieve political objectives through arrogance, ignorance, and false assumptions (which is saying much the same thing I suppose) so how or what it felt like to fight and lose doesn't interest me particularly, however the victory of a very poor nation is more interesting.
Naturally if you have seen The Mouse That Roared then you know that the whole point of fighting the USA is to lose and then benefit from reconstruction money - the Vietnamese plainly hadn't watched the film. Macdonald offers a curious answer to explain their victory, namely poverty. Because in Macdonald's view you struggle to beat people so poor that they consider it natural to live off rice alone, and to walk from one end of the country to another carrying close to their own body weight, purely to be able to determine their own fates for good or ill. Poverty and logistics, because even short, scrawny people need to eat, and esprit de corps, soldiers were enjoined to behave decently to themselves and each other, the military structure was, Macdonald thinks, benevolently paternalistic, making their army sound like a Japanese industrial corporation of the post war era rather than a fighting force. It is hard to fall back on a concept of military genius , because even if Giap was a genius, command and control was at times determined by people running from one command to the next with bits of paper (sometimes they had radios). In short officers in the field effectively were largely going to have to do their own thing. Plus Macdonald says, Vietnam and the Vietnamese are opaque, despite their habit of writing poetry they don't say much , at least to him . The north had limited infrastructure, even before the US started to bomb it, and only a few vehicles, so most supplies were carried on people's backs to the front, although eventually they start to use bicycles ( the tyres had to be stuffed with rags otherwise if filled with air, they'd burst) which they load up with stuff and then walk alongside, steering them with a pole, in the early 70s the Vietnamese used Soviet lorries, but basically they defeated the French and fought the Americans with raw human will power (pp.247-250). Bombing, and at times I found this book quite sickening reading the sheer tonnage of ordinance dropped (and the level of technology employed, computers and what not), failed to convince people not to continue ( as in The IKEA story trees were so full of shrapnel that they broke chainsaws and endangered lumber mills) . And rather like the rebellious rebels fighting their lawful sovereign George III in the thirteen colonies, they didn't have to win ( although the odd victory was always welcome), they just had to be able to continue being able to cock a snook until the other side understood what that guy Clausewitz meant when he said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Interestingly apparently a good number of people on the US side were aware that they had no conception of how to achieve their objectives short of killing everyone from quite early on (the French apparently didn't even get that far), but the scale of the commitment plus I suppose the fear engendered by domino theory made it hard to back out (this phenomenon is known as the sunk costs fallacy it can be observed frequently in politics, business, and sometimes in ordinary life too).
Macdonald although interested in Giap, is not empathetic to his cause, the Vietnamese are brainwashed and fanatics, Imperialism both a glorious chapter in human development while according to his text it apparently left Vietnam poor, under-educated, with a population bristling with dislike of foreign domination or interference - a national characteristic dating back to when a pair of elephant riding sisters drove the Chinese out and declared themselves queens long ago, at the dawn of time, or thereabouts.
To my amusement, according to Macdonald, the French blew their Marshal Aid money on fighting in Indochina, and when they were crushingly defeated at Dien Bien Phu, France he claims went into mourning. And having read Obelix and Co, I can't help thinking that a far smaller sum of money spent on land reform and encouraging bicycle manufacture, and discouraging obnoxiousness would have achieved a happier result for everyone. With all the banding about of Marxism and Communism I can't help recalling Marshal Piłsudski, getting off the tram at National Independence. Already in the 1950s the North Vietnamese back pedalled on land collectivisation, because they found it didn't work for them, and they have since gone for market reforms and try to flog robusta coffee beans to the world. We could have all gotten there with way fewer deaths with a bit of cunning.
Macdonald's view is that most of the statistics and figures from the warring parties can't be trusted, on the Vietnamese side because they lacked the administration, he claims, to collect and collate, on the US side because they were political footballs, for a book from the early 90s, Macdonald struggles to find good information from the Vietnamese, despite an interview or two with Giap we don't get close to him or his decision making, or understand the state of his army. Also amusingly the US gave some weapons and training to the Vietnamese at the end of WWII, I wonder when the question of aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 80s came up if anyone recalled Vietnam as an example of the effectiveness of such investment?
Still I'm left distinctly queasy by this book.
This left my father, aside perhaps from shame and guilt, since he would have been in his teen-aged years at the time , with a curiosity in the conflict which led to his owning nearly a shelf full of books on the subject, naturally since misleading statistics are deeply concerning I realised this was a silly thing to think let alone type, since shelves can be long and short, so I got out a tape measure and found he had one metre nineteen centimetres on the topic or as we say about 47 inches in old money. Obviously since I haven't measured the rest of his book collection, yet, this figure stands without comparison, nor have I calculated approximately how many words we are talking about since books with their different formats, paper thicknesses and font sizes are also pretty variable. So this 119 centimetres is a pretty unhelpful kind of statistic . Anyhow what with no shelf being safe from my depredations and this being one of the few books on that shelf that piqued my interest, I read it.
Over the last couple of decades we've all seen more than enough on the television about how wealthy, powerful countries, with sophisticated militaries have failed to achieve political objectives through arrogance, ignorance, and false assumptions (which is saying much the same thing I suppose) so how or what it felt like to fight and lose doesn't interest me particularly, however the victory of a very poor nation is more interesting.
Naturally if you have seen The Mouse That Roared then you know that the whole point of fighting the USA is to lose and then benefit from reconstruction money - the Vietnamese plainly hadn't watched the film. Macdonald offers a curious answer to explain their victory, namely poverty. Because in Macdonald's view you struggle to beat people so poor that they consider it natural to live off rice alone, and to walk from one end of the country to another carrying close to their own body weight, purely to be able to determine their own fates for good or ill. Poverty and logistics, because even short, scrawny people need to eat, and esprit de corps, soldiers were enjoined to behave decently to themselves and each other, the military structure was, Macdonald thinks, benevolently paternalistic, making their army sound like a Japanese industrial corporation of the post war era rather than a fighting force. It is hard to fall back on a concept of military genius , because even if Giap was a genius, command and control was at times determined by people running from one command to the next with bits of paper (sometimes they had radios). In short officers in the field effectively were largely going to have to do their own thing. Plus Macdonald says, Vietnam and the Vietnamese are opaque, despite their habit of writing poetry they don't say much , at least to him . The north had limited infrastructure, even before the US started to bomb it, and only a few vehicles, so most supplies were carried on people's backs to the front, although eventually they start to use bicycles ( the tyres had to be stuffed with rags otherwise if filled with air, they'd burst) which they load up with stuff and then walk alongside, steering them with a pole, in the early 70s the Vietnamese used Soviet lorries, but basically they defeated the French and fought the Americans with raw human will power (pp.247-250). Bombing, and at times I found this book quite sickening reading the sheer tonnage of ordinance dropped (and the level of technology employed, computers and what not), failed to convince people not to continue ( as in The IKEA story trees were so full of shrapnel that they broke chainsaws and endangered lumber mills) . And rather like the rebellious rebels fighting their lawful sovereign George III in the thirteen colonies, they didn't have to win ( although the odd victory was always welcome), they just had to be able to continue being able to cock a snook until the other side understood what that guy Clausewitz meant when he said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Interestingly apparently a good number of people on the US side were aware that they had no conception of how to achieve their objectives short of killing everyone from quite early on (the French apparently didn't even get that far), but the scale of the commitment plus I suppose the fear engendered by domino theory made it hard to back out (this phenomenon is known as the sunk costs fallacy it can be observed frequently in politics, business, and sometimes in ordinary life too).
Macdonald although interested in Giap, is not empathetic to his cause, the Vietnamese are brainwashed and fanatics, Imperialism both a glorious chapter in human development while according to his text it apparently left Vietnam poor, under-educated, with a population bristling with dislike of foreign domination or interference - a national characteristic dating back to when a pair of elephant riding sisters drove the Chinese out and declared themselves queens long ago, at the dawn of time, or thereabouts.
To my amusement, according to Macdonald, the French blew their Marshal Aid money on fighting in Indochina, and when they were crushingly defeated at Dien Bien Phu, France he claims went into mourning. And having read Obelix and Co, I can't help thinking that a far smaller sum of money spent on land reform and encouraging bicycle manufacture, and discouraging obnoxiousness would have achieved a happier result for everyone. With all the banding about of Marxism and Communism I can't help recalling Marshal Piłsudski, getting off the tram at National Independence. Already in the 1950s the North Vietnamese back pedalled on land collectivisation, because they found it didn't work for them, and they have since gone for market reforms and try to flog robusta coffee beans to the world. We could have all gotten there with way fewer deaths with a bit of cunning.
Macdonald's view is that most of the statistics and figures from the warring parties can't be trusted, on the Vietnamese side because they lacked the administration, he claims, to collect and collate, on the US side because they were political footballs, for a book from the early 90s, Macdonald struggles to find good information from the Vietnamese, despite an interview or two with Giap we don't get close to him or his decision making, or understand the state of his army. Also amusingly the US gave some weapons and training to the Vietnamese at the end of WWII, I wonder when the question of aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 80s came up if anyone recalled Vietnam as an example of the effectiveness of such investment?
Still I'm left distinctly queasy by this book.
May 27, 2013
Of course the name Giap is familiar to anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the Vietnam conflict. Often lauded as a military genius there is a mystique about the name and it is richly deserved. His triumphs in defeating the French, the Americans and in the conduct of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia set him apart from most military leaders of the 20th Century as exceptional.It is not that he never made mistakes but that he learned from them and didn't repeat them.
This is a really interesting biography, given its size it can only be a summary but it is precise and well written. It left me with a greater understanding of the war of which I was regrettably a part. I was not so impressed by the inclusion of primary source material, I thought it added a great deal but was poorly incorporated into the text in most instances. Aside from that it was good history.
In addition to providing much I didn't know about Giap it confirmed many of the personal conclusions I had drawn for myself about the conduct of the war. Within three months of my arrival in Vietnam I knew the cause was not only lost but corrupt and mismanaged. Much that I observed left me feeling very uncomfortable about the American effort and the Australian penchant for attaching ourselves to their coat tails.
This war was without doubt one of the greatest examples of an overbearing arrogance and an underestimation of the enemy which led to one of the most devastating defeats in military history. It is arguable that the American military has still not fully recovered now, a generation later.
Giap had a very poor opinion of the Americans as an adversary. He considered them overconfident in their own abilities and the overdependent on the efficacy of technology;inflexibly tied to a logistical tail as concerned with providing air conditioning and ice cream as it was artillery rounds, and without the morale and sense of commitment or necessary willingness to sacrifice to win. He was right on all counts.
Westmoreland, his adversary was ill suited to the task. He was a big scale commander with extensive experience and training for WW2/NATO Cold War style operation. He chose to learn nothing from the French and repeated their failed strategy on the assumption that technological expertise and firepower would make the difference. It is absolutely astounding that with all their intelligence gathering potential that even as late as 1969 the US Army had not developed detailed analysis of the principal characters who were their adversaries. They could give minute details about some insignificant local guerrilla in the delta but knew nothing of the lives and thoughts of Giap, Le Duan or Le Duc Tho, let alone the thousands of senior commanders on the other side. They had little idea of the basic underlying principles of the North's strategy and much that had been written by their most adept adversaries had not even been translated into English let alone studied in detail.
The Australian Army also went to Vietnam as its Government decreed but after just one operation in conjunction with the Americans demanded their own independent area of operations deeming American methods in the field unsuited to the purpose and contrary to all the experience they had gained over the previous two decades. It is telling that Westmoreland regarded the Australian effort as insufficiently aggressive. The Australian approach was of course based on experience in Malaya. Borneo and New Guinea and adapted many of the traits of guerrilla fighting learned in those places. It was dependent on skillful low level infantry tactics at short range. Hunt and kill.
The one major successful tactic employed by the French was the deployment of units in the same way as the Viet Minh deployed. The use of these groups (GCMAS and GMI) were the most effective effort by the French and these units lived with the locals in the jungle and hunted their enemy. Their success was not only something the French high command ignored so did the Americans who came after them. They also ignored the advice of their own mid level officers like David Hackworth and Paul Vann, who supported this king of operation. It was the antithesis of all that Westmoreland's approach was predicated upon. Too many vested career interests to abandon what was clearly failing in favour of what demonstrably worked.An Australian, Barry Petersen developed a similarly successful effort in the Central Highlands in the early part of the War. Westmoreland was suitably impressed but irritated that and American had not made vbeen responsible for such success. His CIA handlers had him removed and replaced by an American fairly promptly thereafter, the whole effort collapsed as a result and the VC were ale to retake the advantage they had lost.
Most importantly Westmoreland, the American Command and the politicians made the fatal mistake of viewing the Vietnamese through the prism of their own characters applying the limitations that would have prevailed had Americans been in control of the PAVN, the VC and the North. They would have folded of course, at almost every turn. It was that very characteristic that the North relied upon. They knew that if they could just string it out long enough and spill enough American blood they would prevail and they did. This was despite major military defeats particularly,during Tet 1968.
More remarkable still than the ineptitude with which they conducted this war against an underestimated enemy about which they knew nothing is the fact that the Americans have approached Afghanistan looking trough the same prisms and that's why the end result will be another defeat that will simply gut the American soldier. There are few examples of good men who fought hard being so poorly served by their commanders and their political leaders than the US Forces in Vietnam. It was a great shame, my heart still bleeds for those who were so ill served.
This is a really interesting biography, given its size it can only be a summary but it is precise and well written. It left me with a greater understanding of the war of which I was regrettably a part. I was not so impressed by the inclusion of primary source material, I thought it added a great deal but was poorly incorporated into the text in most instances. Aside from that it was good history.
In addition to providing much I didn't know about Giap it confirmed many of the personal conclusions I had drawn for myself about the conduct of the war. Within three months of my arrival in Vietnam I knew the cause was not only lost but corrupt and mismanaged. Much that I observed left me feeling very uncomfortable about the American effort and the Australian penchant for attaching ourselves to their coat tails.
This war was without doubt one of the greatest examples of an overbearing arrogance and an underestimation of the enemy which led to one of the most devastating defeats in military history. It is arguable that the American military has still not fully recovered now, a generation later.
Giap had a very poor opinion of the Americans as an adversary. He considered them overconfident in their own abilities and the overdependent on the efficacy of technology;inflexibly tied to a logistical tail as concerned with providing air conditioning and ice cream as it was artillery rounds, and without the morale and sense of commitment or necessary willingness to sacrifice to win. He was right on all counts.
Westmoreland, his adversary was ill suited to the task. He was a big scale commander with extensive experience and training for WW2/NATO Cold War style operation. He chose to learn nothing from the French and repeated their failed strategy on the assumption that technological expertise and firepower would make the difference. It is absolutely astounding that with all their intelligence gathering potential that even as late as 1969 the US Army had not developed detailed analysis of the principal characters who were their adversaries. They could give minute details about some insignificant local guerrilla in the delta but knew nothing of the lives and thoughts of Giap, Le Duan or Le Duc Tho, let alone the thousands of senior commanders on the other side. They had little idea of the basic underlying principles of the North's strategy and much that had been written by their most adept adversaries had not even been translated into English let alone studied in detail.
The Australian Army also went to Vietnam as its Government decreed but after just one operation in conjunction with the Americans demanded their own independent area of operations deeming American methods in the field unsuited to the purpose and contrary to all the experience they had gained over the previous two decades. It is telling that Westmoreland regarded the Australian effort as insufficiently aggressive. The Australian approach was of course based on experience in Malaya. Borneo and New Guinea and adapted many of the traits of guerrilla fighting learned in those places. It was dependent on skillful low level infantry tactics at short range. Hunt and kill.
The one major successful tactic employed by the French was the deployment of units in the same way as the Viet Minh deployed. The use of these groups (GCMAS and GMI) were the most effective effort by the French and these units lived with the locals in the jungle and hunted their enemy. Their success was not only something the French high command ignored so did the Americans who came after them. They also ignored the advice of their own mid level officers like David Hackworth and Paul Vann, who supported this king of operation. It was the antithesis of all that Westmoreland's approach was predicated upon. Too many vested career interests to abandon what was clearly failing in favour of what demonstrably worked.An Australian, Barry Petersen developed a similarly successful effort in the Central Highlands in the early part of the War. Westmoreland was suitably impressed but irritated that and American had not made vbeen responsible for such success. His CIA handlers had him removed and replaced by an American fairly promptly thereafter, the whole effort collapsed as a result and the VC were ale to retake the advantage they had lost.
Most importantly Westmoreland, the American Command and the politicians made the fatal mistake of viewing the Vietnamese through the prism of their own characters applying the limitations that would have prevailed had Americans been in control of the PAVN, the VC and the North. They would have folded of course, at almost every turn. It was that very characteristic that the North relied upon. They knew that if they could just string it out long enough and spill enough American blood they would prevail and they did. This was despite major military defeats particularly,during Tet 1968.
More remarkable still than the ineptitude with which they conducted this war against an underestimated enemy about which they knew nothing is the fact that the Americans have approached Afghanistan looking trough the same prisms and that's why the end result will be another defeat that will simply gut the American soldier. There are few examples of good men who fought hard being so poorly served by their commanders and their political leaders than the US Forces in Vietnam. It was a great shame, my heart still bleeds for those who were so ill served.
March 20, 2018
In Giap:The Victor In VietNam, Brigadier Macdonald tells not only the story of the man, but of the Revolution he worked to created, the army he forged, and the battles and campaigns he won. It's a broad picture, although never quite as deeply insightful as we hope for.
There's a lot of extra history here, as the author understands few Westerners will know too much about Giap and his country. We follow Giap's progress from the provincial beginnings in a patriot family, to School in the Capital, then more Revolutionary training with the Chinese. Then the struggles with the Japanese and French. Dien Bien Phu, Giap's Masterpiece gets close attention. Then we see all the difficulty and nuances of the American war. Everywhere quotes and anecdotes from Macdonald's 1990 travels in Vietnam. Giap is the main character of his story, but the Vietnamese Revolution is a constant theme as well.
The prose is direct enough so that Junior readers will find their time well spent. The Military Enthusiast/Gamer/Modeller will find this a strong resource as the many anecdotes and campaign details will help to develop scenarios and dioramas with more depth and nuance. A straight rec to any student of the period.
There's a lot of extra history here, as the author understands few Westerners will know too much about Giap and his country. We follow Giap's progress from the provincial beginnings in a patriot family, to School in the Capital, then more Revolutionary training with the Chinese. Then the struggles with the Japanese and French. Dien Bien Phu, Giap's Masterpiece gets close attention. Then we see all the difficulty and nuances of the American war. Everywhere quotes and anecdotes from Macdonald's 1990 travels in Vietnam. Giap is the main character of his story, but the Vietnamese Revolution is a constant theme as well.
The prose is direct enough so that Junior readers will find their time well spent. The Military Enthusiast/Gamer/Modeller will find this a strong resource as the many anecdotes and campaign details will help to develop scenarios and dioramas with more depth and nuance. A straight rec to any student of the period.
April 28, 2025
It's hard not to just say: mid. I enjoyed the first third, it mainly explores Giap's upbringing and war against the French. The rest of the book is mainly just a summary of the Vietnam War, which if you're interested in I would recommend Max Hasting's Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy. Also maybe this was just my copy but there is a rather amusing typo on page 172: "With financial and technical aid from the Soviet Union, the Republic of China, and other socialist countries, Ho Chi Minh started a big program of industrialization." The typo being the Republic of China being listed as a socialist country that aided Ho Chi Minh, obviously People's Republic of China is what he meant. The book itself ends on a really bleak ending, with Macdonald focusing on Vietnam's demobilization after withdrawing from Cambodia and isolation in the late 80s. The reason this is off putting is because of how well in Vietnam is doing now, there are certainly problems but the country is stable and has mostly maintained a 5% GDP growth rate since the late 80s. While stability and high GPD growth rates are not always sold indicators of success for a country, it's hard to say Vietnam's future is bleak, at least for now.
September 25, 2023
This is the 2nd book I’ve read on the man and he still fascinates. This book covers his life’s work: freeing Vietnam. His life proves the adage it’s hard to beat someone who won’t quit. He was and remains one of my favorite generals.
November 15, 2007
Nice book, going through all the Vietnam war. The author doesn't take sides and keeps independence. He reminds how cruel were the communists against their own people and of course discusses all the atrocities the US did in Vietnam. Even though he takes the point of view of North Vietnam all along the book, he describes how wretched the country ended up after 20 years of communist rule. Critics often say Giap was ruthless and didn't care about the lives of his men. The author says the only strength Vietnam had against US was number, so Giap had no choice but to send thousands of them to death. Still, according to the author, he was tried to limit the casualties of his own troops whenever he could. Anyway, Giap is probably one of the greatest generals of all time, who made up an army from nothing that was able to fight the Japanese army, defeat the French, the US and, in a less known episode, the Chinese.
September 18, 2014
This was overall a good book. The title is somewhat misleading. I found the story started with the famous general's early life and victories/defeats by the French. After that, the book quickly went into a Vietnam War history. The author added quite a few personal letters from NVA/PAVN soldiers/officers, but rarely any evidence or documents written by general Giap himself. At the end of the book, the author adds explanations to this fact by stating the secrecy of the Vietnamese as a culture and as a communist country. From the book, the author did visit with General Giap, but must not have spent much time with him. Nor did he get into the personal papers or documents of the general or others of the Vietnamese Communist Party that knew him. Yet, I found the book very good and informative.
July 5, 2014
Great book. Gives the perspective from the other side. General Giap was the last field commander to beat two modern western armies(France and the United States) one on one without any air support. He also beat the Japanese, the Chinese and the Cambodian lunatic Pol Pot. He was onsite when the artillery started to fall on the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and was present when Saigon fell in 1975.
If his story is not required reading for cadets of ROTC and service academies it should be.
General Giap died on 4 October 2013. A giant of a man who directed the military fight to free his country from foreign occupation. We can learn a lot from his story.
If his story is not required reading for cadets of ROTC and service academies it should be.
General Giap died on 4 October 2013. A giant of a man who directed the military fight to free his country from foreign occupation. We can learn a lot from his story.
April 25, 2010
Interesting guy, though the book itself concentrates more on the overall strategy of the war rather than on the individual.
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