Drawing on the lives of soldiers and officers, doctors and nurses, journalists and activists, artists and politicians, Haygood illuminates a generation caught between two battles: one on the front lines in Vietnam and another for justice and dignity in America.

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Among those at the heart of the story are Air Force pilot Fred Cherry, the first Black officer captured by the North Vietnamese and a hero to millions back home; Dr. Elbert Nelson, a doctor who came to Vietnam after watching TV footage of the Watts riots in Los Angeles and soon found himself amid rising Black soldier protests overseas; Wallace Terry, a groundbreaking Black reporter determined to expose the dynamics of race and war to the American public and Philippa Schuyler, a biracial concert pianist who traveled to Vietnam to rescue mixed-race orphans, many fathered by Black soldiers, and died trying to bring them to safety.

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Surrounding their experiences are the cultural and political forces of the era, including Martin Luther King Jr., Marvin Gaye, Berry Gordy, and Lyndon Johnson, whose voices and actions shaped a decade of turbulence and transformation.

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The War Within a War is both sweeping history and intimate revelation, capturing the tragedies and triumphs, the honor and hypocrisies, the courage and cowardice that shaped an era and whose repercussions resonate today.