可借阅:*
图书馆 | 资料类型 | 排架号 | 子计数 | 书架位置 | 状态 | 图书预约 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
正在检索... Central | Book | 959.4 HAMILTON-MERRITT | 1 | Non-fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
链接这些题名
已订购
摘要
摘要
The staunchest of allies, the Hmong were America's foot soldiers in the brutal secret Lao theater of the Vietnam War, risking all to defend their homelands and to rescue downed American air crews. Abandoned by the United States when it withdrew in 1975, the Hmong have been subjected to a campaign of genocide by communist Laos and Vietnam, including the use of chemical-biological toxin warfare. Thousands of Hmong, now scattered in refugee camps, are being forcibly repatriated to Laos - where they face retribution and terror. From their ancient homelands in China, with a fiercely independent culture dating back to 2000 B.C., the Hmong migrated southward out of China into the mountains of Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. More than 120,000 Hmong now live in the United States, from California to Minnesota to Pennsylvania. But thousands more lead desperate lives in refugee camps in Southeast Asia - knowing that repatriation could mean death. Tragic Mountains tells the story of the Hmong struggle for freedom and survival in Laos from 1942 to the present. During those years, most Hmong sided with the French against the Japanese and Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh and then with the Americans against the North Vietnamese. These allegiances have led the current Lao government to declare the Hmong as enemies, vowing to ""wipe them out."" This is a story of courage, tenacity, brutality, secrecy, incredible heroism by Hmong and Americans alike, international cynicism, betrayal, genocide, resilience, and (still) hope. Jane Hamilton-Merritt has written it to open the world's eyes to the proud history and current tragedy of the Hmong - with the desire that this book ""might yet change the destiny of those repatriated.""
评论 (5)
出版社周刊评论
The Hmong, a mountain people of Laos, were U.S. allies during the Vietnam war. A noble, friendly folk with a 4000-year-old culture, they are the object of a genocidal campaign by the communist Laotian and Vietnamese governments. In this bitter, tragic and disturbing saga, Asian scholar/journalist/photographer Hamilton-Merritt documents the horrible suffering endured by the Hmong since they were abandoned by the U.S. in 1975. Her collection of eyewitness testimonies establishes that the Laotian-Vietnamese forces have field-tested chemical and biological toxins by using Hmong villages as targets (the ``yellow rain'' dismissed by the Western media as bee dung). The situation is especially urgent because those thousands of Hmong who succeeded in escaping to Thailand are now being forcibly repatriated to their homeland, where they face extermination as a despised minority and former ``running dogs of the imperialist.'' Hamilton-Merritt's impressive study, one hopes, will lead to the belated U.S. recognition of responsibility for the plight of the Hmong. Photos. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Passionate but overwritten story of a primitive people being destroyed by modern political forces, by Hamilton-Merritt (A Meditator's Diary, 1976, etc.). This is a cri de coeur on behalf of the Hmong, a tough minority ethnic group who have lived in the highlands of Laos since being driven out of the south China mountains in the 18th century, and who have more recently had the misfortune to ally themselves with the US. The local left saw them as collaborating first with the French, then with a nation that brought high-tech defoliants, B-52s, and napalm to a local war. Hamilton-Merritt's sense of identity with the Hmong, among whom she has lived, is very strong. In their cause, she relates a sometimes overwhelming saga of incidents, often excessively detailed (providing the relative physical sizes of people met by a French agent circa WW II, for example, and the names of countless Laotian people and places) as well as supplying an in-depth context, such as in her description of a Communist attack days after Khrushchev and Kennedy agreed not to fight over Laos. Overall, Hamilton-Merritt's heavy style detracts from what seems to be her central point--the delineation of a brutal, cynical use of the Hmong by the US government. The Hmong, the author contends, were close allies whom the US abandoned, subjecting them to attack by local forces that resented their alliance with the US; and the subsequent near-extermination of the Hmong by Communists using Russian chemical weapons was, the author argues, ignored by the US because of new political priorities. Labored prose and a surfeit of incidentals weigh one down in this ambitious, well-researched, too thorough document. (Photographs.)
《书目》(Booklist)书评
This is a comprehensive history of American relations with the Hmong tribe of Laos, a relationship that began when the Hmong were contacted by the OSS in 1942 for anti-Japanese resistance activities, continued through the various wars in Southeast Asia in which the Hmong were staunchly anti-Communist, and persists during the post-Vietnam War period in which the Hmong have faced the alternatives of exile or genocide. This story is complex and requires some background in the general history of the Vietnam War. But it is also well told, with few villains, many ignorant, and hardly any heroes except the Hmong themselves. Recommended for large Vietnam collections. ~--Roland Green
Choice 评论
Hamilton-Merritt's book is not another dreary and repetitive work lamenting US involvement in Southeast Asia. Rather, it is a tribute to the Hmong, an ethnic minority group that supported the US during the secret war in Laos. The book is also an indictment of successive American administrations that have ignored the plight of the Hmong at the hands of brutal communist regimes in Laos and Vietnam. Horror stories--from torture to genocide, including chemical-biological warfare--are exposed. The author is an Asian scholar, journalist, and photographer. Nominated for a Pulitzer prize in 1969 for her coverage of the Vietnam War, Hamilton-Merritt has testified before the US Senate and House on the plight of the Hmong. The war in Vietnam has been recounted many times, with the war in Laos treated as a side show in a brief chapter or two. This book stands alone in showing the relationship between these wars. Extensive documentation, excellent and appropriate photographs, useful maps, a good index, and an adequate glossary. Recommended for all college and large public libraries. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty. M. O'Donnell; College of Staten Island, CUNY
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
In a sideshow to the Vietnam War, the United States and North Vietnam fought a secret war in Laos, with the Hmong people the valiant allies of the Americans. In the end they were deserted by the United States. Some came to this country, but many stayed in Southeast Asia, either as unwelcome refugees in Thailand or subject to imprisonment and genocide (including ``yellow rain'' attacks) in their native land. The author, a journalist with intimate knowledge of the Hmong, uses hundreds of interviews and her own experience in relating their wartime struggles and frustrated efforts to have their postwar tragedy recognized by the United States and the United Nations. This is an important story, little acknowledged--let alone reported--in the world press. Highly recommended.-- Kenneth W. Berger, Duke Univ. Lib., Durham, N.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
目录
Preface |
Preface to the Third Printing |
Chronology |
Part 1 The Fight for the Control of Indochina |
1 Massacre on the Mekong |
2 The time of the Fackee |
3 The Rise of the Viet Minh |
4 The Time of the Viet Minh |
Part 2 Laos: The First Domino |
5 The Time of the Americans |
6 Camelot and the Land of Oz |
7 The Charade of Neutralization |
Part 3 Secret War in Laos: The Johnson Years |
8 CIA Operations at Long Chieng |
9 Widening of the "Secret War" |
10 Phou Pha Thi Falls, "the Alamo" Holds |
11 Hmong in the Skies |
12 Vang Pao Goes to Washington |
Part 4 The Nixon-Kissinger Years |
13 Men of Courage |
14 The U.S. Betrays the Hmong |
15 Lima Lima |
16 Kissinger and Guerilla Diplomacy |
17 Bouam Loung, SKY Border Base |
18 War Bloodies the Land of Oz |
19 The Siege of Long Chieng |
Part 5 "Peace" in Laos: The Communist Takeover |
20 The Last Americans |
21 Am Ominous Lull |
22 "Wipe Them Out!" |
Part 6 The Lao Gulag |
23 Exodus |
24 Chao Fa: Mystical Warriors |
25 Holocaust in the Hills |
26 The Giant Slays Sin Sai's Soldiers |
Part 7 A New Military Age |
27 "A Conspiracy of Silence" |
28 "Yellow Rain" and World Councils |
29 Wronged by the Media |
Part 8 Wronged in War; Wronged in Peace |
30 Burial in Montana |
31 Abused and Abandoned |
32 Requiem |
Appendix |
Notes |
Glossary |
Interviews and Sources |
Index |
Illustrations |