From Melos to My Lai: A Study in Violence, Culture and Social Survival
This is a tough, uncompromising, and provocative study in which Tritle (history, Loyola Marymount Univ.; The Greek World in the Fourth Century: From the Fall of the Athenian Empire to the Successors of Alexander) tells the bitter history of the Vietnam War against the background of the wars of classical Greece. The citizens of Melos in the title surrendered unconditionally to the Athenians only to have the men of military age put to death and their women and children sold as slaves. The author equates that event with the My Lai massacre of 1968, when U.S. soldiers indiscriminately killed Vietnamese villagers, mostly women and children. That analogy is only one of many drawn between the classics and Vietnam. Tritle, himself a Vietnam vet, says that "a generation of Americans was deceived in almost criminal fashion [in Vietnam] and exposed to horrific situations of violence in which they were both its agents and objects." Recommended for public and academic libraries.-Chet Hagan, Historical Soc. of Berks Cty., Reading, P.-- and exposed to horrific situations of violence in which they were both its agents and objects." Recommended for public and academic libraries.Chet Hagan, Historical Soc. of Berks Cty., Reading, PACopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.