Stanley Karnow, journalist and Vietnam historian, dies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/stanley-karnow-journalist-and-vietnam-historian-dies/2013/01/27/53cefb74-1c50-11e1-967a-d7f5eed205d7_story.html

By Stephanie Hanes and — Special to The Washington Post, Sunday, January 27, 12:15 PM

Stanley Karnow, an author and journalist who wrote one of the seminal histories of the Vietnam War and won the Pulitzer Prize for his sweeping historical narrative of U.S. involvement in the Philippines, died Jan. 27 at his home in Potomac. He was 87.
He had congestive heart failure, said his son, Michael Karnow.

The New York-born Karnow launched his career as a foreign correspondent after setting sail for Europe on a coal freighter a week after graduating in 1947 from Harvard University. He subsequently became known for his distinguished coverage of the Vietnam War, first for Time magazine and later for news outlets that included the Saturday Evening Post, The Washington Post and NBC News.
Filing dispatches from the Far East for nearly 15 years — from the earliest days of American casualties in Vietnam — he became one of an elite handful of influential journalists who challenged the official stance in Washington that the United States was easily controlling the “struggle.”
His Emmy-winning 13-part PBS series “Vietnam: A Television History” was one of the most widely viewed public-television documentaries ever when it first aired in 1983; his companion book, “Vietnam: A History,” sold millions of copies and was praised for its insight and comprehensiveness.
“In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines,” the book for which he received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in history, earned praise as the best popular history of America’s relationship with the Philippines. Mr. Karnow synthesized three centuries of Filipino foreign relations into what critics described as a compelling read, with vivid portraits of the Spanish, American and Filipino leaders who shaped the country that would be the United States’ only colony. 
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