The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War

New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1999. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. xvi, 432 pages . Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. From the author's website: John Prados is an author and analyst of national security based in Washington, DC. He is the author of more than twenty books and many articles on topics of current importance, presidential studies, international security; and diplomatic, intelligence, or military history. Pathbreaking at the time were Prados's history of the National Security Council Keepers of the Keys; and The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence and Soviet Strategic Forces (a key resource for understanding Soviet military power). The Blood Road is a book reframing the war through the lens of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Derived from a Kirkus review: An intriguing analysis of the American war in Vietnam, as seen through the prism of the North Vietnamese supply line known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. When historians examine the military engagements of the war, they usually focus on the 1965-68 Rolling Thunder bombing campaign, the 1968 Tet Offensive, the 1968 siege at Khe Sanh, the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, and the so-called Christmas bombings of 1972. But Prados makes a convincing case that the building of, North Vietnamese use of, and American and South Vietnamese attacks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail instead constitute the most important military aspects of the war: Calling this 12,000-mile network of roads and paths the North Vietnamese "highway to victory". His well-researched book contains impressively detailed nuts-and-bolts descriptions of how the trail was built and maintained. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, he says, "made that possible." An original account of the Vietnam War, interpreted logistically.