Great book if you want to know every minute detail about Dien Bien Phu. To me it spends way to much time with the politics of why and how France found itself in Vietnam. The book was full of redundant information. If half of that was removed from the content you would have 200 page book. Instead we have to slug through 500. I thought the best reading of the entire book was the last two chapters where the author threw off the formalities and gave a good overall picture of the French defeat. It seemed to take forever to get there though. The Finale, detailing the journeys of those that escaped was also fascinating. As well as the Postface, "Where are they now". Other than that I'd pass this one up unless you are really insane for French Indochina military history. I only gave it 4 stars because it is historically, about the most thorough writing on the subject.