Not really worth a post of its own, but Bolton out here railing against a second Trump term is the best broken-clock-right-twice argument I've seen in a long time.
Bolton's book is fucking hilarious. The pomposity drips off the page like wet red paint. He also comes off as a self-aggrandizing oaf - there are a number of statements and arguments made in that book where you're left going "did you even go to college." But the best part is as a deeply unserious man with a wafer-thin understanding of the world, the degree to which Trump just fucking rubs him the wrong way is a goddamn joy. It's like watching leprosy write an essay about how much lupus sucks.
anyone have recs for books (histories, memoirs, general nonfiction) about vietnam and possibly laos?
I made it about halfway through Matterhorn. It's fiction but good. Vietnam: A Television History is a fucking grind but it's good. Ken Burns' thing is less so. Vietnam makes an appearance in The March of Folly which is absolutely worth your time because it's Barbara Tuchman, but it's not really about Vietnam. I don't think there are any good books about Vietnam because it's always been peripheral to bigger things with bigger perspectives. It's called Vietnam, not Nam Viet, for example, because the Mandarin Chinese refused to trade with them if they didn't spell their country backwards. American involvement in it was a consequence of French involvement in it and the French were too busy worrying about the fall of Algeria to worry about the fall of Vietnam. Americans tend to put themselves at the center of every conflict while the Vietnamese consider it to be a civil war that the Americans meddled in. But I'm willing and eager to be proven wrong.
Thanks!! Especially the Barbara Tuchman rec, I think I’ll start with that one. Been reading a bunch of wiki pages about Vietnam, Laos, both civil wars, the Hmong, etc. and want to keep learning! Have you been to the Wing Luke?