Valley of the Shadow: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu

Kevin Boylan · Luc Olivier

Feb 2019 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Joe Barrett

Audiobook

11 hr 27 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

Struggling to reassert control over their Indochinese colonies after World War II, the French established a huge air-land base in the valley of Dien Bien Phu. But when the opposing Vietnamese People's Army (VPA) began massing its forces against the base in late 1953, French commanders seized the opportunity to draw their elusive enemy into a decisive set-piece battle. Defending a series of fortified positions which were reliant upon a single airstrip-and later, risky and inaccurate airdrops-for reinforcement and resupply, the French troops quickly discovered that they had underestimated their enemy. In fifty-six days of costly close-quarters fighting, the VPA slowly dislodged the French from one strongpoint after another by developing novel tactics and accomplishing incredible feats of engineering. Drawing upon Vietnamese-language sources never previously employed in Western accounts of the siege, Valley of the Shadow is a dramatic re-telling of the climactic battle of the First Indochina War, the conflict that saw the French expelled from their former colony and set the stage for the "American War" in Vietnam.

About the author

Kevin Boylan teaches history at Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his BA in History from Rutgers University, and his PhD from Temple University. From 1995 to 2005, he was employed by the Pentagon as a defense analyst for the US Defense Department and the US Army Staff.

Luc Olivier earned his master's degree in geography at the CESA in the University of Tours, and served in the French Army as a second lieutenant and platoon commander. He also has an extensive background in IT consulting and is presently the managing director of a French-Hungarian IT company.

Joe Barrett has been a working stage, screen, and recording booth actor since 1974 and an award-winning and eight-time Audie Award-nominated audiobook narrator since 1999. He also practiced law for five years-but don't hold that against him. Joe is married to actress Andrea Wright, and together they have four children.

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