Dispatches | 
| Author: Michael Herr
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy Used: $4.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  104 reviews
Sales Rank: 5886
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0679735259
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.70438
EAN: 9780679735250
ASIN: 0679735259
Publication Date: August 6, 1991
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Amazon.com
Michael Herr, who wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting and turned them into what many people consider the best account of the war to date, when published in 1977. He captured the feel of the war and how it differed from any theater of combat ever fought, as well as the flavor of the time and the essence of the people who were there. Since Dispatches was published, other excellent books have appeared on the war--may we suggest The Things They Carried, The Sorrow of War, We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young--but Herr's book was the first to hit the target head-on and remains a classic.
Product Description
"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre." . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S. Thompson.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 99 more reviews...
 Excellent depiction of how it must have really been August 5, 2008
I've never been there, thank God, but this book got me closer to the madness of being there than comfortable. Outstanding read.
 Herr's reach exceeds his grasp August 2, 2008
The subject matter is definitely worth 270+ pages, but I agree with others who said that Herr talks endlessly but doesn't seem to get to the point.
The first 80 pages are free associative. Chapters 3 and 4 are the meat of the book and the ones worth reading, and I recommend you read those and let that be the end of it. Towards the end he descends again into the free associative stuff. I have nothing against that style, but Herr is not a gifted-enough writer to pull it off. I think sometimes he thinks he's Joseph Heller. He isn't. And he isn't Joseph Conrad or Erich Remarque, either, though one gets the feeling he wants to be. Herr is at his best when he does the straight forward, journalistic writing.
Finally, do not mistake this book for non-fiction. Herr has admitted that he has taken liberties with the truth with this book, so consider it "inspired by actual events."
I love this book August 1, 2008
It made it right to my top ten. It is smart and humble and I want to read it over and over.
Still a terrific book about wartime and journalism June 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just read this book for the first time since I was in college and it still is one of the best pieces of work on the hard job of covering a war from behind the lens of a camera. Herr always threw himself into the middle of things and had little patience for people who just went to VN to get their tickets punched. Incredible writing. Jaded but not cynical. Really called it as he saw it. As a former military and civilian reporter --but never in a war -- I can only marvel at how Herr kept doing his job day after day in the middle of so much terror and confusion.
 Disgruntled Journalist April 7, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
A condesending, snarky, view of the Vietnam war and those who fought it. written in sophomoric prose. Would be popular among those who love Oliver Stone, Peter Arnet, and Dan Rathers.
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