Long Reckoning

George Black's The Long Reckoning tells how a handful of determined people pushed the United States to answer for damage it left behind in Vietnam: the effects of Agent Orange and the unexploded bombs and other munitions still buried in the ground. The group includes two Vietnam veterans, along with scientists, pacifists inspired by Quaker principles, and their Vietnamese partners.

The book focuses on one small stretch of land, bounded by the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam and by the Ho Chi Minh Trail in neighboring Laos. This area endured the most intense aerial bombing campaign in history, heavy spraying of toxic chemicals, and the highest casualties on both sides. Black argues that the lasting harm done there has never been properly examined.

The people at the center of the story relied on moral authority, scientific and political ingenuity, and stubborn persistence to try to repair what the war had done. Their intertwined stories are about reconciliation and personal redemption, and they unfold against a vivid picture of Vietnam today, where past and present constantly collide and former mortal enemies have become close allies and partners as geopolitics shifts.

The book was published on the fiftieth anniversary of the day the last American combat soldier left Vietnam.