Fallaci based the book on the testimony of several American soldiers who participated in the Mỹ Lai massacre and the reports of some of the survivors.

A partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career.

Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution, and her "long, aggressive and revealing interviews" with many world leaders during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

[1] Her book Interview with History contains interviews with Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Willy Brandt, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Henry Kissinger, South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, and North Vietnamese General Võ Nguyên Giáp during the Vietnam War.

[2] The book in diary format is the story of one year of the author's life as a war correspondent for L'Europeo in Saigon, Vietnam, between 1967 and 1968 with the photographer Gianfranco Moroldo.