



An Honorable Exit
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker
From the award-winning author of The Order of the Day, a piercing account of the lesser-known conflict preceding the Vietnam War that dealt a fatal blow to French colonialism.
How can a modern army lose to an army of peasants?
Delving into the last gasps of the First Indochina War (1946–1954), which saw the communist Việt Minh take control of North Vietnam, Éric Vuillard vividly illustrates the attitudes that both enabled French colonialist abuses and ultimately led to their defeat and withdrawal. From the Michelin rubber plantation, where horrific working conditions sparked an epidemic of suicides, to the battlefield, a sense of superiority over the “yellow men” pervaded European and American forces. And, as with so many conflicts throughout history, there were key actors with a motivation deeper than nationalism or political ideology—greed.
An Honorable Exit not only brings to life scenes from the war, but also looks beyond the visceral reality on the ground to the colder calculations of those who seek to benefit from conflict, whether shrewd bankers, who can turn a military win or loss into financial gain, or intelligence operatives like the CIA, who aim to influence governments across the globe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Prix Goncourt winner Vuillard (The War of the Poor) offers an impassioned and impressionistic indictment of the cruelty and hubris that sparked the First Indochina War (1946–1954). Vuillard opens with a 1928 visit by French labor officials to the Michelin rubber plantation in Vietnam, which had experienced a rash of worker suicides. Though the inspectors were horrified to discover stockades for deserters and "deep contusions" on workers' bodies, the ensuing report led "to not one single reform or indictment." Vuillard then skips ahead to October 1950, when a rebel army whose ranks have been swelled by former rubber plantation workers "annihilated" two columns of French forces in the Tonkin region in northern Vietnam, which led to a fractious debate in the National Assembly over whether to seek peace or escalate the conflict. Lawmakers chose the latter, and Vuillard uncovers the role that corporations and financial institutions, particularly the Banque de l'Indochine, played in pushing France toward military defeat—and entangling the U.S. in the process. Throughout, Vuillard emphasizes the venality, racism, and greed of the French elite, and provides visceral sketches of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and other clashes. This slim volume delivers a powerful anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist message.