Precious Freedom - by James Bradley (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The Vietnam War was a tragedy for America--and for Vietnam. But for the Vietnamese, it was also a victory: they defeated the world's wealthiest country and most powerful military. James Bradley, the author of Flags of Our Fathers, began to wonder, How did they win?

Precious Freedom explores this question in a powerful novel that is drawn from the pages of history. Informed by ten years of research and hundreds of interviews with US Marines, Viet Cong snipers, and Vietnamese fighters, politicians, and leaders, Precious Freedom is storytelling at its finest.

In 1967, nineteen-year-old Chip Zobel enlists in the Marines, answering his government's call to defend democracy in South Vietnam. But what he finds on the ground shakes his faith: poisoned punji sticks, rotting uniforms, Agent Orange-tainted drinking water, constant ambushes, a brutal case of malaria--and the realization that many of the Viet Cong he's fighting are actually South Vietnamese locals--the men and women he thought he was fighting to defend.

Back home, Chip's mother, Betty, initially a staunch supporter of the war, begins to question its morality. His father, Hank, a former Navy corpsman who fought in the Battle of Saipan during World War II, grows skeptical as he begins to read US military reports that compare Ho Chi Minh to George Washington--a fierce patriot who leads his people to freedom.

Meanwhile, in a quiet Vietnamese hamlet, fifteen-year-old May watches as a US Marine kills her father. She flees to the forest and joins a Viet Cong training camp. Three months later, she makes her first kill as a sniper--eventually, she will kill four more Americans with her rifle. Unbeknownst to her, her path will ultimately cross with that of the Marine who killed her father--Chip Zobel.

James Bradley wrote Precious Freedom to honor all who served in Vietnam and to help a new generation understand the war's complex truths.

This is a story that America has never been told.

"James Bradley journeyed to Iwo Jima and returned with Flags of Our Fathers and now ventures to Vietnam and brings us Precious Freedom, where he reveals that if we'd known what happened in the 1960s in Vietnam, American mothers would never have sent their children to Iraq and Afghanistan. The truth is the best vaccination against great lies."--Oliver Stone

Review Quotes

"James Bradley journeyed to Iwo Jima and returned with Flags of Our Fathers and now ventures to Vietnam and brings us Precious Freedom, where he reveals that, if we'd known what happened in the 1960s in Vietnam, American mothers would never have sent their children to Iraq and Afghanistan. The truth is the best vaccination against great lies."--Oliver Stone

"James Bradley is in top form with Precious Freedom, displaying his gift for making complex subjects understandable. Precious Freedom is the place to start if you haven't read about the Vietnam War and if you're familiar with the genre, it will add significantly to your understanding."--Douglas Valentine, author, The CIA as Organized Crime

"For more than sixty years, Americans have looked at Vietnam through the wrong end of a telescope. Precious Freedom turns it around, bringing into sharp focus Vietnamese people who lived and died in the Pentagon's gunsights. James Bradley's profound novel illuminates the resilient spirit of Vietnam's people and the historic aggression of America's warfare state."--Norman Solomon, author of War Made Invisible

"James Bradley's revelatory account of how the Vietnamese people defeated a better armed, better funded fighting force backed up by the richest country in the world offers an object lesson in why so-called advanced technology and vast expenditures are no match for superior morale, smart strategy, deep local knowledge, society-wide commitment and unity of purpose. . . . The stories Bradley conveys offer a cautionary tale about the dangers of an approach based on technological hubris and misplaced faith in the power and effectiveness of military intervention, divorced from an understanding of local conditions. War is a human endeavor, and Bradley captures that truth in compelling detail."--William D. Hartung, Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of The Trillion Dollar War Machine

"The world knows that Vietnam defeated the United States in a long war, but how did Vietnam accomplish that astonishing feat? James Bradley has come up with a magnificently rich and deeply researched answer. His book teaches us much about the war and about Vietnam, but most of all about the United States and why it embarks on such devastating misadventures."--Stephen Kinzer, author of Poisoner in Chief and The Brothers

"Precious Freedom is an extremely important book that counters the distorted revisionism about the Vietnam War prevalent in the US, presenting the US cause as a noble one, and America's South Vietnamese allies as heroic. Bradley is a gifted story-teller and writer who gives voice to the Vietnamese people who successfully stood up to defend their country against brutal foreign invaders, backed by local collaborators. Drawing on dozens of interviews, including with aides to Ho Chi Minh, North Vietnamese army generals, and southern-based National Liberation Front (NLF) fighters, along with American Marines, Bradley explains how and why Vietnam won the Vietnam War, and how and why the US lost. Important lessons can be drawn from this history that sheds light on the barbarism and folly underlying US foreign policy in the Cold War."--Jeremy Kuzmarov, Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and author of Obama's Unending Wars

"If we had truly understood what happened in Vietnam, no American would have let their children march off to Iraq or Afghanistan. Precious Freedom exposes the buried lessons of war, showing how forgotten history paves the road to repeated tragedy."--John Kiriakou, Author of The Reluctant Spy

"If you have spent time with US veterans of the Vietnam War and with Vietnamese citizens who lived through it, and took part in it, you will immediately recognize in these pages the enormous nuance and complexity of that time in both countries' histories. It's likely in your daily routine that you meet someone who fought in Vietnam, and it's almost guaranteed that they are still thinking of those days, the terror and camaraderie. At the same time, we struggle to find a way to talk about it. That's where James Bradley comes in. Precious Freedom is an engrossing, highly-researched and essential part of this complex conversation. We undertake a new journey with James Bradley: he takes us inside the lives of the people, culture, and aspirations of the Vietnamese people who met on the battlefields with the older men you see today in the grocery stores, the coffee shops, at high school graduations. If we are to understand the experiences of these two countries, and to honor them, we must see they are inextricably bound. Bradley brings this relationship to dramatic light in a way we cannot forget or put down. Read this book for yourself, for the veterans of any conflict, and for the Vietnamese people who have become some of America's steadfast allies, just as they had predicted they might be. Precious Freedom is an important and poignant homecoming of many, many kinds."--Doug Stanton, # 1 New York Times bestselling author

PRAISE FOR JAMES BRADLEY

(for Flags of Our Fathers)

"Unforgettable ... one of the most instructive and moving books on war and its aftermath that we are likely see." - The New York Times

"The best battle book I ever read ... These stories, chronicling the time the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima enlisted, their training, and the landing and subsequent struggle, fill me with awe." - Stephen Ambrose

"A powerful book whose vivid and horrific images do not easily leave the mind ... [Flags of Our Fathers] relates the brutalizing story of Iwo Jima with a fine eye for both the strategic imperative and the telling incident."- The Boston Globe

"Brings a heartfelt personal dimension to this penetrating and insightful look at an American icon ... Flags of Our Fathers captivates as the story behind a famous photo; a story that lives on in a son's heart."- National Review

"Graphically, horrifically, and heroically told ... Not only a gripping true story but also an inspirational book, a tale about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances." - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Bradley's gripping narrative, vivid descriptions, and heartfelt style make this a powerful story of courage, humility, and tragedy ... The book packs both a literary and historical punch ... Highly recommended." - Library Journal

(for Flyboys)

"In Flyboys, James Bradley combines his tenacious detective skills with his gifts as a master storyteller to produce a tragic epic of two empires. I wept not only for the American pilots, but for all the millions of people who died needlessly in the Pacific War." - Iris Chang

"Bradley has written a clear-eyed, heartfelt approach to a little-known corner of the 20th century's largest and most violent upheaval, while at the same time shining a light on some of that generation's finest." - Denver Post

"Flyboys is not just a true story of courage but a frightening reminder of the savagery human beings are capable of and of the terrible moral choices nations at war must make."- Houston Chronicle

"Bradley tackles head-on the thorny issues of Japan's wartime villainy and America's problematic response ... A gripping story." - Los Angeles Times

"An unforgettable story about eight forgotten World War II flyers and a ninth who became the 41st president of the United States. Heroism and the horrors of war collide over the South Pacific, and Bradley weaves a compelling tale. Like his previous work ... Flyboys will be a part of the historical record for years to come." - Pages

"A powerful, compelling look at a tragic time in our history." - W.E.B. Griffin

"Bradley has once again given us the human face of a war ... a triumph of careful listening ... and most of all ... empathy." - Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers

(for The Imperial Cruise)

"Mr. Bradley does not simply cite Roosevelt's egregious talk. He presents this much-ignored aspect of Roosevelt's thinking with sharp specificity and then goes on to make a much more damaging point, angrily and persuasively connecting Roosevelt's race-based foreign policy miscalculations in Asia. His these in The Imperial Cruise is startling enough to reshape conventional wisdom about Roosevelt's presidency." - Janet Maslin, New York Times

"A provocative study ... What is fascinating about Bradley's reconstruction of a largely neglected aspect of Theodore Roosevelt's legacy is the impact that his racial theories and his obsession with personal and national virility had on his diplomacy. Engrossing and revelatory, The Imperial Cruise is revisionist history at its best." - Ronald Steel, New York Time Book Review

"This is a book to admire and, it must be said, to enjoy ... The Imperial Cruise is breezy and engaging ... The heart of the Bradley argument is that Roosevelt's forgotten corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the one that warned the Old World that the United States, and not European nations, would intervene if Western Hemisphere nations had unstable economics and owed large debts, emboldened Japan to become an aggressor nation in the run-up to World War II." - David M. Shribman, Boston Globe

"A page-turner ... eye-opening." - Mike Householder, Associated Press

(for The China Mirage)

"The backstory to one of the world's most important relationships - the United States and China." - NPR's Morning Edition

"A vivid, bracing, and careful study .... There are lessons to be learned about war and peace, and Bradley's valuable book offers a warning about past and future unnecessary entanglements." - History News Network

"Bradley has produced another gripping historical account with ramifications for today's world."- World Affairs Council

"Bradley argues that a better understanding of China could have helped America to avoid war with Japan in 1941 and subsequent wars in Korea and Vietnam. Verdict: A superlative read that is highly recommended to experts and novices alike." - Library Journal (starred review)

"Bradley...argues that this positive, pre-WWII view of China was false and led the US into several policy errors, including the needless provocation of Japan... Bradley's work is insightful and entertaining." - Publishers Weekly

"Uncovers the nineteenth-century plan to create a 'New China' and 'Americanize Asia'...In this relentless critique of wrongheaded thinking by government officials who did not speak the Asian languages and had little hands-on experience, Bradley focuses especially on the foreign policy of the two Roosevelts ... Bradley delivers a strenuous expose about the initial building of the 'rickety bridge of fellowship crossing the Pacific." - Kirkus Reviews

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