New books: More about war

The End of Major Combat Operations

Nick McDonell

McSweeney’s: 164 pp., $13.95 paper

In 2009, Time magazine sent 25-year-old Nick McDonell, already the author of two novels, to Iraq. In this slender, less-is-more nonfiction, he offers an impressionistic narrative of his experiences embedded with the 1st Cavalry Division. While it is typically a journalist’s job to report, McDonell reveals a strong point of view: The Bush administration was “cowardly, arrogant and dangerous.” Despite his objections to the war, he has sympathy for those who must bring it to a close, particularly foot soldiers and the interpreters — terps — who face reprisals for helping Americans. If there are signs of hope for Iraq’s future, McDonell cannot find them.

Stripping Bare the Body

Politics Violence War

Mark Danner

Nation Books: 656 pp., $28.95

Mark Danner collects more than 20 years’ worth of international reporting in this, his latest book, which includes essays on Haiti’s bloody 1987 election, the war in the Balkans, terrorism, torture and the invasion of Iraq. A MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, Danner coined the term “the forever war” in a 2005 New York Times Magazine article — reprinted here — to describe the U.S. mission in Iraq and beyond. “War is the critical event looming over the book,” he writes, and, taken as a whole, his accounts provide a clear indictment of the uses and misuses of American military power.

Valley of Death

The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America Into the Vietnam War

Ted Morgan

Random House: 752 pp., $35

In this meticulous history, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ted Morgan explores the bloody 1954 battle at Dien Bien Phu from all sides. Lasting six weeks, it ended France’s involvement in Indochina and set the stage for America’s equally doomed engagement in Vietnam. Morgan’s knowledge of the players is surprisingly intimate: He was born in 1932 to the French De Gramont family, and despite having been educated in America, was drafted into the French Army, where he served with men who’d fought in Southeast Asia.

—Carolyn Kellogg