Laos: War and Revolution

"This extremely important book is unique in what it tells us about Laos, about America's destructive behind-the-scenes manipulations and overt war-making there, and about the gifted and young Asian American specialists who put it together and wrote much of it."
- Robert Jay Lifton

"Laos: War and Revolution is a provocative book which reflects both the bitterness and the scholarship of a new generation of Asianists. The fact that it had to be written is a serious indictment of the veracity of four administrations on the subject of Laos"
- James C. Thomson, Jr.

"No grand exposures, no detailed reporting on the scene by journalists and TV crews, none of the exposure in the media that has plagued the similar American effort in Vietnam. The murder and destruction have been carried out in delightful obscurity, so much so that even the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was unaware until October 1969 of 'this big war in Laos,' and 'had no idea we had a full-scale war going on.' And the ordinary citizen is naturally still less aware. Of course, we live in an open society, and therefore all will ultimately be revealed. The history books may, some day, be reasonably accurate. The peasants of Laos, rotting in refugee camps, may take comfort in this fact."
- Noam Chomsky, from this Introduction