The French Indochina War was one of the longest modern wars. However, in schoolbooks, it hardly exists. With a formidable sense of storytelling, Une sortie honorable tells how, by a stupendous reversal of history, two of the world’s leading powers lost to a “small country,” Vietnam, and plunges us into the heart of the tangle of interests that led to the debacle.

The Indochina war remains unknown, badly perceived, poorly assimilated, which is both the interest and the difficulty of this subject.

But the reading is all the more captivating because the charge is powerful against politics, militaries, and bankers.