A mix of travelogue, history, and mediation on a journey through the Ho Chi Minh Trail that reveals the critical role women played in defending it. Offering both a personal and historical exploration of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, this book highlights the critical role the Trail and the young women soldiers who helped build and defend it played in the Vietnam War. Accompanied by two traveling companions, Sherry Buchanan winds her way from Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, in the south. Driving through the spectacular scenery of Vietnam and Laos, she encounters locations from the Truong Son mountains, the Phong Nha Caves, ancient citadels, and Confucian temples to the Khmer Temple of Wat Phu at the western-most point of the Trail in Laos.   Buchanan records her interactions—both scheduled and spontaneous—with those who experienced the Vietnam War firsthand. She listens to the women who defended the Trail roads against the greatest bombing campaign in modern times, walks through minefields with the demolition teams hunting for unexploded ordnance, and meets American veterans who have returned to Vietnam with an urge to “do something.” Buchanan weaves informative, and often humorous, tales from her journey with excerpts from the accounts of others, situating the locations she visits in their historical and political context. On the Ho Chi Minh Trail brings together geography, history, and personal accounts to reveal the scale of the tragedy, its harmful legacies, and our memory of it. Buchanan challenges American exceptionalism and calls for redress for those harmed by US military actions during the Vietnam War and America’s subsequent wars. "Never in my life have I finished a book in just a few days as I did On the Ho Chi Minh Trail . More than four decades after the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, Sherry Buchanan journeyed down the trail to meet actors and participants from all sides of the war, especially the women who built and defended it. By following in the footsteps of these young women, she has given them a voice and a face not too many people know about. She also brings to the fore the strategic role they played in the conflict." -- Le Ly Hayslip ― USA Today "Buchanan’s interview style gives the women space to tell their own stories in their own words, reviving their youthful energy and dedication. . . . Also included are photographs that capture Vietnam’s beauty and contrasts—of mountain ranges swathed in blue mists that hide steep, death-dealing ravines; of a tank abandoned fifty years ago that rusts at the edge of a rice field. On the Ho Chi Minh Trail is a satisfying cultural history with insights into Vietnam and the women who fought for it." ― Foreword Reviews "Intrigued to know more about the War from female perspectives, [Buchanan's] book is guided by interviews with former female soldiers who contributed to the building of the trail or fought in the war against the US Army. . . . The book is conveniently structured in chapters, as each marks a point in her journey from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. In each city or place, she meets the female soldiers whose contribution to the war still has not been sufficiently appreciated and adequately honored in Vietnam. These are women balancing ammunition boxes on their shoulders, who fought side by side with their male counterparts, and who still remain  traumatized by the horrors of the war they experienced first hand." ― Asian Review of Books "The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the quasi-mythical network of roads, paths and tunnels that North Vietnam used, in its war against South Vietnam and the Americans, to transport military supplies to its supporters in the South, the Viet Cong. On the Ho Chi Minh Trail  is a travelogue, charting American journalist, author and publisher Sherry Buchanan’s trip down the trail in 2014, collecting the stories of the young women who played a vital role in keeping the trail open despite the constant American bombing. The book includes pictures of Vietnamese war art, maps and an itinerary (in case you want to follow in her footsteps!) and brings all of the author’s knowledge of Vietnam to bear." ― Five Books "Combining travelogue, history, interviews, art, and 'endless empathy', this reveals the hidden history of the women who defended the Ho Chi Minh Trail against the most ferocious bombardment in modern times, during the Vietnam War." ― The Bookseller "Buchanan tells the powerful story of the women who defended the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network of roads and trails used by the North Vietnamese to supply their troops, defeat the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, and unify the country. A journalist, expert on Vietnamese art and an historian, Buchanan has deep insight and understanding that flows through this historical reminiscence and travelogue. . . . Buchanan’s voice is lyrical. . . . By grounding her modern meditations on the Trail in an historic context, Buchanan has con