2008-08-19 An amazing book

This book is truly amazing. As someone who is very interested in history, but not very knowledgeable about French Indo-China I can heartily recommend this book.

The book started slowly, I found, and was very descriptive of the political situation before and after WW2. My advice is - stick with it. The knowledge Martin Windrow imparts in the first part of the book is invaluable for understanding attitudes later on. As the fortifications and then the battle commence in the book you find yourself swept away with the passion the author obviously has for the subject. The book is well written, well informed and immensely readable.

Before I read this book I had little knowledge of the French involvement and no overriding desire to find out, but this book changed everything for me. It is a rare book indeed that can make you catch breath with the almost palatable fear and tension that the soldiers must have been feeling. I have now read more widely on the subject and have started including the Vietnam War, but this book still remains my favourite on the subject of Dien Bien Phu - the Stalingrad of the jungle.