Harvesting Pa Chay's Wheat

Keith Quincy's history is the fullest single-volume account of the Hmong role in America's secret war in Laos, from French colonial rule and the Pa Chay revolt of 1918 through the CIA's recruitment of Vang Pao's army, the fall of Long Cheng, and the exodus that followed. Quincy is an outsider and a blunt one; his judgments of American conduct are severe, and specialists dispute points of his interpretation. But at nearly six hundred pages it remains the reference this shelf needs, the book that supplies the dates, names, and chains of decision the memoirs assume you already know. Read a memoir first so the history has faces, then keep this within reach as the map. For adult readers ready for a full military and political history, and for every library serving a Hmong community.