Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial

Guilty: the conclusion of many trials. But this verdict was unusual, delivered by a jury of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, among them Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin and Stokely Carmichael; and in the chair, legendary philosopher-mathematician Bertrand Russell. The defendant was unusual, too: the United States government. Award-winning historian Clive Webb lays bare the extraordinary true story of the 1967 Russell Tribunal and its attempt to hold the US government to account for atrocities in the Vietnam War. The revelations that came out of the tribunal shocked the world. Vietdamned is an eye-opening account of the anti-war movement, of cover-ups and abuses of government, and of the power (and limits) of celebrity.