Until the Last Man Comes Home

POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War

Nonfiction, History, Military, Vietnam War, Asian, Americas, United States, 20th Century
Cover of the book Until the Last Man Comes Home by Michael J. Allen, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Michael J. Allen ISBN: 9780807895313
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: September 18, 2009
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Michael J. Allen
ISBN: 9780807895313
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: September 18, 2009
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

Fewer Americans were captured or missing during the Vietnam War than in any previous major military conflict in U.S. history. Yet despite their small numbers, American POWs inspired an outpouring of concern that slowly eroded support for the war. Michael J. Allen reveals how wartime loss transformed U.S. politics well before, and long after, the war's official end.

Throughout the war's last years and in the decades since, Allen argues, the effort to recover lost warriors was as much a means to establish responsibility for their loss as it was a search for answers about their fate. Though millions of Americans and Vietnamese took part in that effort, POW and MIA families and activists dominated it. Insisting that the war was not over "until the last man comes home," this small, determined group turned the unprecedented accounting effort against those they blamed for their suffering. Allen demonstrates that POW/MIA activism prolonged the hostility between the United States and Vietnam even as the search for the missing became the basis for closer ties between the two countries in the 1990s. Equally important, he explains, POW/MIA families' disdain for the antiwar left and contempt for federal authority fueled the conservative ascendancy after 1968. Mixing political, cultural, and diplomatic history, Until the Last Man Comes Home presents the full and lasting impact of the Vietnam War in ways that are both familiar and surprising.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Fewer Americans were captured or missing during the Vietnam War than in any previous major military conflict in U.S. history. Yet despite their small numbers, American POWs inspired an outpouring of concern that slowly eroded support for the war. Michael J. Allen reveals how wartime loss transformed U.S. politics well before, and long after, the war's official end.

Throughout the war's last years and in the decades since, Allen argues, the effort to recover lost warriors was as much a means to establish responsibility for their loss as it was a search for answers about their fate. Though millions of Americans and Vietnamese took part in that effort, POW and MIA families and activists dominated it. Insisting that the war was not over "until the last man comes home," this small, determined group turned the unprecedented accounting effort against those they blamed for their suffering. Allen demonstrates that POW/MIA activism prolonged the hostility between the United States and Vietnam even as the search for the missing became the basis for closer ties between the two countries in the 1990s. Equally important, he explains, POW/MIA families' disdain for the antiwar left and contempt for federal authority fueled the conservative ascendancy after 1968. Mixing political, cultural, and diplomatic history, Until the Last Man Comes Home presents the full and lasting impact of the Vietnam War in ways that are both familiar and surprising.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book Builders of Empire by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book The Bitterweed Path by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book The Autobiographical Myth of Robert Lowell by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Singing in My Soul by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book The County of Warren, North Carolina, 1586-1917 by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Oregon and the Collapse of Illahee by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Grand Designs and Visions of Unity by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Into the Sound Country by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Pea Ridge by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Corazón de Dixie by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Johann Jacob Moser and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Lands, Laws, and Gods by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Wayfaring Strangers by Michael J. Allen
Cover of the book Cattle Colonialism by Michael J. Allen
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy