Most high-school history classes run out of time before the teacher can make it to the conflict in Southeast Asia. It's probably safe to assume, then, that the vast majority of young people in this country have learned about Vietnam, not through the classroom, but via any number of films and TV shows. But Hollywood, however accurate, is a sorry substitute for the real thing, and anyone unfamiliar with the Vietnam conflict would benefit from digesting The Library Of America's recent two-volume compendium, Reporting Vietnam. Collecting dozens of powerful pieces written by just as many reporters, it's an extremely useful tool: Not only does it relate what transpired in Vietnam without special effects or make-up, but it also reveals how journalism has changed in the years since. When America experienced its first casualties in 1959, TV had yet to totally overtake newspapers as the public's first source of information, and cable and the Internet were still a long way off. By the time the U.S. had pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, graphic TV footage had forever changed the balance of American journalism—and, some theorize, Americans' very perception of their government. The powerful articles, essays, and stories collected in Reporting Vietnam represent a clear-eyed and surprisingly calm print media that seems aware of the military effort's futility from the very beginning. The trouble in Vietnam began all the way back in 1940, when French Indochina became a key front in WWII, and, due to the steady expansion of communism, the U.S. gradually increased its involvement. America's insistence on containing communism's spread—right or wrong—began exacting a terrible cost, as the conflict continued into the '70s. Reading through these pieces allows current events to take on a far more menacing scope: If Reporting Vietnam can't prevent unforeseen escalation in regional conflicts, it can at least demonstrate the downside of any open-ended military maneuver, be it in Iraq, Korea, or the former Yugoslavia.