Voices from the Plain of Jars
Life Under an Air War

Fred Branfman (Edited by), Alfred McCoy (Foreword by)

9780299292249

Paperback / softback, published 31 May 2013

176 pages, 34 black & white illustrations
20.5 x 13.7 x 1.2 cm, 0.369 kg

During the Vietnam War the United States government waged a massive, secret air war in neighbouring Laos. Fred Branfman, an educational advisor living in Laos at the time, interviewed over 1,000 Laotian survivors. Shocked by what he heard and saw, he urged them to record their experiences in essays, poems, and pictures. Voices from the Plain of Jars was the result of that effort.

When first published in 1972, this book was instrumental in exposing the bombing. In this expanded edition, Branfman follows the story forward in time, describing the hardships that Laotians faced after the war when they returned to find their farm fields littered with cluster munitions- explosives that continue to maim and kill today.