Mark Bowden is a journalist and the author of 13 books, including Black Hawk Down and his latest, Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam.

“My goal is never to condemn someone that I’m writing about. It’s always to understand them. And that, to me, is far more interesting than passing judgment on them. I want you to read about Che Thi Mung, an 18-year-old village girl, who was selling hats on corners in Hue in the daytime and going home and sharpening spikes to go into booby traps to try and kill American soldiers and ARVN soldiers in the evening. I want to understand why she would do that, why she would be so motivated to do that. And I think I did.”

Thanks to MailChimp, LeVar Burton Reads, Babbel, and HelloFresh for sponsoring this week's episode.

@markbowdenwrite

markbowdenbooks.com

Bowden on Longform

[01:00] Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (Grove Press • 2010)

[01:00] Bowden’s Black Hawk Down Series at The Inquirer

[01:15] Bowden’s Archive at The Atlantic

[01:15] Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam (Atlantic Monthly Press • 2017)

[02:00] Startup: A Novel (Doree Shafrir • Little, Brown and Company • 2017)

[02:00] readthissummer.com

[09:30] "Hell Sucks" (Michael Herr • Esquire • Aug 1968)

[10:15] The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Tom Wolfe • Picador • 2008)

[10:30] Thy Neighbor’s Wife (Gay Talese • Harper Perennial • 2009)

[11:15] Bowden’s Inquirer stories reprinted in Road Work: Among Tyrants, Beasts, Heroes, and Rogues (Atlantic Monthly Press • 2004)

[24:15] "Tales of the Tyrant" (Atlantic • May 2002)

[28:30] Worm: The First Digital World War (Atlantic Monthly Press • 2011)

[29:15] The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden (Atlantic Monthly Press • 2012)

[35:00] Erin Lee Carr on the Longform Podcast

[35:45] "The Enemy Within" (Atlantic • Jun 2010)

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