In this book, Barry M. Kroll tells how college students in the late 1980s responded to his course on the Vietnam war in literature. Kroll designed the course to engage students' hearts and minds in the processes of connected and critical inquiry. He argues that students should be personally absorbed in a topic--emotionally connected to key issues and texts--if inquiry is to be more than a perfunctory exercise. Kroll raises a number of important critical questions about texts and meaning, particularly concerning the nature of authority and the reader's role in creating meaning. He focuses on students' efforts to think reflectively about literary representation, historical truth, and moral justification. Drawing on John Dewey's concept of reflective inquiry, Kroll asserts that his course did not challenge his students to "acquire" information, but rather to "inquire"--to explore, probe, and query. Kroll's methods are informal and interpretive. Much of the story is told in the students' own language drawn from their class journals and interviews. Kroll seriously considers students' attempts to build emotional or personal bridges to the war--their efforts to engage in "connected inquiry" into the nature of the Vietnam experience. He traces their responses to a series of increasingly challenging books, examines their efforts to discern what actually happened in a key battle, and explores his students' efforts to make sense of the idea that war justifies killing. This unusual book offers an optimistic perspective on the possibilities for undergraduate education in American universities. It speaks to teachers of writing and literature who are concerned that the classroom be a place where critical thinking is encouraged and to the increasing number of teachers and students whose curriculum includes courses about the Vietnam war.