Michael David Herr was an American writer and war correspondent, renowned for his book, Dispatches (1977), a memoir of his tenure as a correspondent for Esquire magazine during the Vietnam War (1967–1969). The book was acclaimed as "the best book to have been written about the Vietnam War" by The New York Times Book Review. Esteemed novelist John le Carré praised it as "the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."