Reviews

The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam by Geoffrey Shaw

samiwise's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

nfsreloaded's review against another edition

2.0

I appreciate the light shed on the positive side of the 1st Republic of Vietnam, but feel the narrative slanted too much in doing so. President Diệm, detached from his scheming brother and draconian sister-in-law, was not deserving of his reputation and grisly demise, but this book makes it appear as though all flaws and failures of the Ngô brothers' regime (in so far the author even acknowledges them) occurred outside his control or knowledge. Another point that keeps The Lost Mandate from more than a 2-star rating is the overabundance of marginalia, which occupy half the page at certain points. An apt writer should've been able to weave this extraneous information into the narrative or at least confine the footnotes to the closing pages of each chapter.