The Vietnamese version of the book “My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness” (Source: baotintuc.vn)

Titled "My Lai: Viet Nam, 1968 - Nhin lai cuoc tham sat" in Vietnamese, the 700-page book, translated by Manh Chuong, provides a comprehensive, and truthful description of one of the darkest events in the US’s military intervention in Vietnam.

It is the result of a decade of research by Howard Jones, University Research Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Alabama.

My Lai was a peaceful village in Quang Ngai province. On the morning of March 16, 1968, US troops from three platoons of Company C entered four hamlets: My Lai 4, My Khe 4, Binh Tay, and Binh Dong in Son Tinh district, Quang Ngai province, located near the demilitarized zone called "Pinkville" by the US troops. In three hours, 504 unarmed villagers, mostly women and children, were killed by US troops. The brutal massacre was named the My Lai massacre after one of the villages.

Published on the 55th anniversary of the massacre, the book recreates the events and consequences of the My Lai massacre and analyzes the responses of the parties involved in the campaign. The book is based entirely on holistic archival research, military records, and in-depth interviews with American and Vietnamese military service members and a few lucky survivors of the massacre. The book will be a reference that helps scholars, researchers and readers understand the history of the American wars in Vietnam.

Ralph B. Levering, author of “The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History” called this the best book by far on the My Lai massacre and its aftermath which exhaustively researched, persuasively argued, and a page-turner to boot. A must-read for anyone interested, not only in the Vietnam era, but also in how things can go terribly wrong in the midst of armed conflict, the laws of war notwithstanding.
Truly exceptional.”