Kill Anything That Moves

By Nick Turse,

Book cover of Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam

Book description

Americans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by just a few "bad apples." But as award-winning journalist and historian Nick Turse demonstrates in this groundbreaking investigation, violence against Vietnamese non-combatants was not at all…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Kill Anything That Moves as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I came across the work of Nick Turse while working on the fifth chapter of my new book. I had been struggling to find a critical voice in the assessment of the American war in Vietnam that was sustained by a keen historical eye and the pure, intellectual critique of a scholar. When I found Turse, I found my answers.

Turse’s assessment of the unmitigated brutality of the American war in Vietnam chilled me; his powerful critique brought a new voice and vigor to my own burgeoning criticism of that U.S. slaughter in Southeast Asia.

Anyone looking for a strong…

Terse provides a tsunami of information showing that a combination of youth, military training, racism, the emphasis on “body count,” and access to highly destructive weaponry led to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilian deaths in Vietnam at the hands of US military forces. In this case he discusses the consequences for Vietnamese civilians when most US officers and their charges employed violence indiscriminately. He also documents how the military’s role in covering up violations contributed to a representation of the My Lai massacre as an aberration rather than business as usual. I found the book both profound…

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