April 30, 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the end of what in the United States we refer to as the Vietnam War.

American War — named after what the conflict was called in Vietnam — confronts the myths and untruths that continue to haunt our collective memory of the war. Whereas the prevailing narrative tends to focus on the war as an embarrassment for the US, that emphasis misrepresents where the greatest losses were. American War reveals the lingering effects of a conflict that changed the world, through stories of military failure, the refugee diaspora, and the speech and adoption policies that persist even today.