Author: Martha Hess
Subject: History
Paper ISBN 0-8135-2145-9
Pages: 239 pp. 52 b&w illus.

"It is difficult to imagine a more powerful indictment of American military conduct in Vietnam than these testimonies..."--Publishers Weekly

"Through candid, emotionally wrenching interviews ... Hess has humanized the 'faceless' cipher of the Vietnamese civilian."--Chronicle

Although we have heard the official stories of Vietnamese political and military leaders, those who fled the country and those who remained, there has been no way of knowing until now, how the general populace felt about the war. Then the Americans Came is the first book about the war in Vietnam told by Vietnamese in their own words. Beginning in 1989, Martha Hess, accompanied by a translator, traveled above and below the 17th parallel, interviewing over one hundred people about their experiences. This selection of their stories, incorporated with over fifty black and white photographs, makes up a uniquely stirring and painful document of the ravages of an all-out war directed against a civilian population. Hess is donating the proceeds from this book to war-wounded Vietnamese.

Martha Hess is a court reporter in New York City.