Vietnam

In his latest book, David Levinthal explores the visual lexicon of the war in Vietnam through photographs that have thunderous, visceral impact. The images showcase the artist's sophisticated handling of photographic tools and techniques to dramatize figures and dioramas based on the war. His reflection on the consequential effects of the conflict on American popular culture and the artist's own memories of the era, Vietnam is haunted by the legacy of movies like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket and recontextualizes Hitler Moves East, Levinthal's breakthrough body of work made with Garry Trudeau just as America was withdrawing from Vietnam. With written contributions from French novelist Bernard-Henri Lévy; and art historian and curator Lisa Hostetler, the volume takes visual inventory of a war that shattered conventional ideas about America's geopolitical power, the national psyche, contemporary social relations, and mass media.