The Ugly American

The Ugly American is the title of a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. The novel became a bestseller, it was influential at the time, and it is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Southeast Asia (that is, Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The novel, taking place in a fictio... more

The Ugly American is the title of a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. The novel became a bestseller, it was influential at the time, and it is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Southeast Asia (that is, Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The novel, taking place in a fictional nation called Sarkhan (an imaginary country in Southeast Asia that somewhat resembles Burma or Thailand, but which is meant to allude to Vietnam) as its setting and includes several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The book describes the United States's losing struggle against Communism - what was later to be called the battle for hearts and minds in Southeast Asia, because of innate arrogance and the failure to understand the local culture. The title is actually a double entendre, referring both to the physically... less