Even though dont remember the war myself, its been imprinted on me like an invisible brand, stamped between my shoulder blade citizen parents survived four decades of bar and famine and terrible things and even though they rarely spoke tot that hey exuded the force of that memory through treasure actions and feelings and so did everyone necessary the vietnamese american Refugee Community i grew up. As an american boy growing up wassing a cognizant of the fact that the vietnam was important to the vietnamese american Refugee Community and the American Community as a whole but americans only saw one side of the story. Apocalypse now, scared me for life. My life is very uninteresting. The novel is my revenge on hollywood and francis ford coppola, and my attempt to also tell the history of the vietnam war and city story of the vietnam war from the perspective that most americans never heard of before, which is how their own allies, their friends, the south vietnamese experienced this, and my narrate or is in the south Vietnamese Army who is giving us the commune perspective on it and when he arrives the United States he is giving us the viewpoint of how the vietnamese see American Culture which is not necessarily in a positive light. So theres a very satirical dimension of the novel as well, as i get white people to think about what white culture looks like to people from outside of this country. But i think the topic has been hard to exhaust for me which i why i had to right another Nonfiction Book about it. Nothing ever dies vietnam and the war by money attempt to situate the war in the larger context of 100 years of american warfare waged in the pacific since 1898 when the United States took the philippines, guam, puerto rico, hawaii, the korean war, the vietnam war and now iraq and afghanistan as an extension of a centerlong American Campaign and thats why i northeast teed turn to nonfiction. I couldnt say those kinds of things in a novel. Good back to that for one second. One of the contextual questions i had for you is whether your experience writing the novel did anything to reform your sense of the vietnam war in any way . Well, definitely so, because i wrote the novel to criticize everybody. So, theres something fob everybody just like in the move. Criticizes the communists and the south vietnamese, the americans, and i think the theme of the novel is sympathy for the sympathizer and the easiest thing to do in war or conflict is to sympathize only with our own side. Right . And the virtue and the flaw of my character, he simple theses with everybody, which makes him a great spy and also going to lead to his downfall as well, and thats what i learned from writing the novel, if we have if theres any hope forward for piece and reconciliation and things like that, it requires expansion of sympathy and empathy beyond our own closed communities to a much larger human community. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. In 1979 chance was created and brought you by your cable or satellite provider. This weeks after Words Program takes a look at social Media Marketing and advertising on consumers and the marketplace. Columbia University Professor tim wu discusses his book the attention merchants the epic scramble to get inside our heads with john force