The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam

by Christopher E. Goscha

The Vietnamese are in the unusual situation of being both colonizers themselves and the victims of colonization by others. Their country expanded, shrunk, split and sometimes disappeared, often under circumstances way beyond their control. Despite these often overwhelming pressures Vietnam has survived and is universally recognized as forming one of Asia's most striking and complex cultures.

As more and more visitors come to this extraordinary country, there has been for some years a need for a major history - a book which allows the outsider to understand the many complex layers left by earlier emperors, rebels, priests and colonizers. Vietnam's role in one of the Cold War's longest conflicts has meant that its past has been endlessly abused for propaganda purposes and it is perhaps only now that the events which created the modern state can be seen through a truly historical perspective.

Christopher Goscha is a leading expert on Vietnam, and this book draws on the latest research and discoveries in Vietnamese, French and English. It is a major achievement, describing both the grand narrative of Vietnam's story but also many of the remarkable byways and what ifs, and is particularly strong on the countless minority groups who have done so much over the centuries to define the many versions of Vietnam.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Asia, Audiobook, World History, Asian Literature, Unfinished

539 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Christopher Goscha studied at the School of Foreign Service, University of Georgetown (BA), the Australian National University at Canberra (MA), the University Diderot Paris VIII (MA) and l’École des Hautes Études (PhD, La Sorbonne). He joined the history department at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2005. He teaches international relations, world history, the history of colonial and postcolonial Indochina, decolonization and the Indochina Wars. He has published several books including the Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954): An International and Interdisciplinary Approach (University of Hawaii/Cophenhagen, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2011), Vietnam, Un Etat né de la guerre (Paris, Armand Colin, 2011) and The Penguin History of Vietnam (London, Penguin/Random House, 2016) Vietnam, A New History (2017 John K. Fairbank Prize Winner – American Historical Association) (New York, Basic Books, 2016, slightly revised American version of the Penguin History of Vietnam).

Ancien élève de l’École des Affaires étrangères de l’Université Georgetown (BSFS), de l’Australian National University à Canberra (MA), de l’Université Diderot Paris VII (DEA) et de l’École des Hautes Études (PhD, La Sorbonne, Paris), Christopher Goscha est professeur au sein du département d’histoire à l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Depuis 2005, il y enseigne les relations internationales, l’histoire globale, l’histoire de l’Indochine coloniale, la décolonisation et les guerres d’Indochine. Il est l’auteur de plusieurs ouvrages dont l’Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954): An International and Interdisciplinary Approach (University of Hawaii/Cophenhagen, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2011), Vietnam, Un Etat né de la guerre (Paris, Armand Colin, 2011) et The Penguin History of Vietnam (Londres, Penguin/Random House, 2016) Vietnam, A New History (2017 John K. Fairbank Prize Winner – American Historical Association) (New York, Basic Books, 2016, version américaine légèrement révisée du Penguin History of Vietnam).

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Vietnam remains to this day at the center of intense global rivalries, and it is tempting to view the country and its history in terms of the conflicts of the ‘great powers.’ The problem, however, is that such accounts of Vietnam are driven by the views of those who coveted, occupied, and fought over this country. By casting Vietnam as a former colony or a strategic zone, or reducing it to a single war or a series of wars, the history of Vietnam becomes the story of its relationship with outside powers. There is nothing necessarily wrong with an external take on Vietnam’s past. However, such accounts tend to present the history of this country in rather one-dimensional ways: Vietnam was acted upon by the big powers; it was not quite an actor itself. In the great power account, Vietnam is the victim of colonization and domination, never a colonizer or a conqueror itself. Its own internal divisions, ethnic diversity, and conflicts are obscured…”
- Christopher Goscha, Vietnam: A New History

The history of Vietnam stretches back for centuries. Nevertheless, that vast and varied story often gets reduced to a single stretch of time during which the United States fought Vietnam, and Vietnam fought each other. While this period was certainly calamitous – costing the lives of millions of Vietnamese people – it’s only a part of a much bigger tale.

In Vietnam, Christopher Goscha tries to alter our perceptions of a country that is regularly defined in terms of its tragedies, so that the tragedy almost becomes its identity. Instead of looking from the outside-in – or evaluating Vietnam in terms of its impact on America’s domestic politics during the 1960s – Goscha attempts to present events from the inside-out, and to explore its many facets. Tragedy is a part of it, to be sure, but not all of it.

This is a refreshing take on Vietnam, one that is deeply researched by an expert in the field. It has a lot of things to say. Unfortunately, it is an absolute chore to read.

***

Vietnam starts around 10,000 BCE, with the earliest cultures in Southeast Asia, and ends right around the present-day. Between those two posts, numerous dynasties, kingdoms, unions, and states rise and fall, and you see Vietnam form, reform, and re-reform over the years. It can get a bit tangled, but Goscha’s methodical approach is helpful in this regard. Thankfully, there are also some decent maps that allow you to track the various geographical configurations.

For the most part, things proceed chronologically, though there are a handful of chapters – including one on art, literature, and music – that are thematic in nature.

Perhaps sensing his own limitations as a writer of lively prose, Goscha works hard on the structure. Each chapter begins with a short anecdote highlighting a person or event, with the rest of the chapter further subdivided by headings, so you know exactly what is going to be discussed. Though I was seldom engrossed, I was also never lost. Which is something, I guess.

***

At close to five-hundred pages of text, Vietnam is a pretty weighty book. Even so, tradeoffs have to be made in terms of coverage. The bulk of the chapters focus on the years of French colonization, though narrated from the perspective of the Vietnamese themselves. Meanwhile, most of Goscha’s emphasis is on political maneuverings, though he occasionally touches upon things like religion, agriculture, and the economy.

The information here is good. Vietnam is rigorously sourced, it is well considered, and Goscha clearly knows his stuff, including the language itself. His arguments are set forth plainly and adequately supported.

The problem is that I have a hard time absorbing data when I’m not engaged with the material. For example, Goscha introduces dozens and dozens of individuals that most people have probably never heard of before. Despite this, he seldom does more than give a person’s name. There are no biographical sketches, no physical descriptions, no telling incidents that might reveal character. Without this stuff, it became really hard to remember who was who, so I had to keep extensive notes.

There are near-infinite moments in which Goscha could’ve enlivened things with a set-piece scene to draw you into the action, but he studiously avoids them all. Dryness almost seems to be an ideal to which he is aspiring.

***

Goscha complicates matters by his refusal to use familiar identifiers such as Viet Minh, Viet Cong, or even North and South Vietnam. I understand his reasoning – which he sets forth at the beginning – but it makes things far more difficult than necessary, as I had to retrain my mind to differentiate between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam. It also makes for clunky sentences cluttered with long proper nouns or abbreviations.

***

This is a valuable book. It succeeds in its aim of showing a fuller portrait of Vietnam, one in which it has some measure of agency. It is more than a sad accident of fate, destined to exist at a strategic crossroads, pulled in different directions by “stronger” nations such as China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Judged solely on its merits as a history, this is exceptional.

But as literature, this barely meets expectations. I really wanted to learn more about the land, and the humans who lived upon it, and their personal experiences of war, famine, dislocation, rebuilding, and renewal. In a book filled with heartaches and hopes, I should have felt some emotional twitch.

The curious thing about Goscha’s Vietnam is that it clearly comes from a place of passion, and yet none of that passion made it onto the page.

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are quite a lot of books that sound like they're about Vietnam, but which, on closer inspection, are really just about the Vietnam War. The country's name has become almost synonymous with that conflict, which more careful writers (aware that the American viewpoint is only one of many) prefer to call the Second Indochina War – the second of three that racked the country more or less non-stop from 1946 to 1991. Now, I am not very interested in military history in a narrow sense, so the title of this book (specifying ‘modern Vietnam’) slightly worried me – I was more excited about the tangled medieval dynastic history than in further retellings of US troop movements and napalm atrocities.

Sure enough, Goscha's main focus is on the century running roughly 1880–1980, but to my surprise I found the details of political (and, yes, military) wrangling here completely riveting, whereas the deep historical content of the early chapters didn't grab me as I'd expected it to. Doubtless that's partly a result of the author's chosen focus. But having that deep context, even in an abbreviated form, changes everything: it takes Goscha several hundred pages to get to the ‘Vietnam War’, but when he does, the long historical set-up makes the ensuing discussion feel revelatory.

Though the book does gamely attempt to guide you through the dynasties that emerged between the deltas of the Red River and the Mekong over the past thousand years or so, it only really kicks into gear once French colonisation gets going in the nineteenth century. And it is interesting to think about the status of Vietnam (though there was no such place then – only ‘Tonkin’, ‘Annam’ and ‘Cochinchina’) as part of a French empire, whose peoples and identities intermingled in weird and wonderful ways. Rigid French schools taught generations of Viet children that they were descended from Gauls; Saigon and Hanoi became home not only to French settlers but also to those from French Pondicherry, in India, from Corsica, and also from North Africa and even the Pacific islands.

There were bizarre conjunctions. Goscha mentions a ‘brilliant student’ by the name of Ky Dong, who went off to finish his studies in Algiers, where he befriended the deposed Vietnamese emperor Ham Nghi; when, back in Vietnam, Dong was linked to anticolonialist rebels, the French exiled him to Polynesia, where he took up art and became a good friend of Paul Gauguin. Within French Indochina, strange hierarchies asserted themselves:

As one testy Pondicherrian reminded the Corsican judge in a Saigon courtroom one day: ‘Monsieur, nous étions français cent ans avant vous’.

It was after the Second World War that colonial impulses became especially complicated. The Viet regions were invaded by the Japanese (Japan had run a puppet government in Indochina during the war), who ‘liberated’ a united Vietnam under emperor Bao Dai. The French were effectively told by the international community to just drop it, and under no circumstances to try and regain their Indochinese colonies. Decolonisation was now in vogue. But the French had no intention of listening to advice like that: they wanted French Indochina back.

So they invaded, via Saigon. The resulting conflict produced two warring entities – one in the south, administered as a colonial holding by the French, and the other in the north, led by Ho Chi Minh. The division was always a nebulous one – as Goscha puts it, each side ‘administered competing, archipelago-like states, whose sovereignties and control over people and territories could expand and shrink as armies moved in and out’. Nevertheless, Goscha reminds us that we could easily have been left with two Vietnams today, much as we've been left with the two Koreas and Chinas.

That this did not happen has something to do with how an age of colonial wars had shifted into an age of Cold War. The French had fought Ho Chi Minh not because of his ideology, but because he was a nationalist who wanted to unite his country. In the 1950s, this was no longer a good look, and ‘French propaganda changed accordingly. Ho Chi Minh was not a nationalist, but an internationalist communist of the very worst kind’. The US had already been supporting the French with money, materiel, and various strategic ‘advisors’ on the ground; after the decisive French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, American involvement became the major factor propping up the South Vietnamese regime.

The north-south conflict then officially looked more like a civil war, which was what it had been underneath all along. Of course, a lot of the South Vietnamese were nationalists too, just non-communist ones. Nor were they much less authoritarian than the communists. But their inability to beat their northern neighbours eventually annoyed the Americans so much that Kennedy gave the green light to a coup, in which the South Vietnamese leader was deposed (and, for good measure, assassinated). From then on, American involvement became much more direct and hands-on.

My cultural awareness of the Second Indochina War has been dominated so completely by the US narratives – the protest songs of the 60s, the roster of classic films from Apocalypse Now to Full Metal Jacket to The Deer Hunter – that it was exquisitely moving to encounter the war through this Vietnamese perspective. It made me realise the extent to which I have always imagined the war in American terms (despite not being American myself). Goscha achieves this both through his choice of narrative line, and also through recourse to raw data.

While every single life is precious, only 58,000 Americans died in the conflict, that's 1.7 percent of the 3.3 million total number of those who died. At 98.3 percent, death was a profoundly Vietnamese experience.

Although I tend to be a little standoffish with ‘modern histories’, fond as I am of the pre-modern, this one seems almost exemplary to me. My only niggle is one that Goscha himself identifies – that his narrative is ‘a very “lowland”- and “Viet”-centric one’. Vietnam, almost as much as its neighbour Laos, is home to a bewildering profusion of ethnic groups which get rather short shrift here. Goscha attempts to make up for this by cramming all of the non-Viet history into one chapter near the end, focusing primarily on the Cham and the Khmer Krom, but this comes across as what it is – an afterthought. This material could have been more usefully integrated into the rest of the book, which might even have made some discussions a little clearer.

But in the grand scheme of things, this is perhaps a minor flaw. I have rarely read a single-country history which kept me as engaged and involved as this one did.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vietnam: A New History by Christopher E. Goscha is an interesting one volume look at Vietnamese history from its earliest times to the modern day. The book seeks to move away from a Vietnamese history dominated by French and American-centric examinations, and seek a broader history of Vietnam as a geographic concept, and the forces that shaped its modern existence, from internal division, Confucian thought, Buddhism, and French Republican and Marxist thought. All of these forces, internally adapted and applied often by external forces, shaped Vietnam into the nation state it is today.

However, this area was not always a homogeneous state. Vietnam developed in the Southeast Asian sphere, with many people groups and states evolving in different areas. It's early history, like many states, is one of competing tribes and people groups who constantly shift, move, displace and disappear. Modern Vietnam as a concept did not exist at this time. The Chinese under the mythical Han, right up to the Tang dynasty, controlled Northern Vietnam off and on as a province called Jiaozhi. The Chinese rulers of this area sought to export their Confucian ideology and turn Northern Vietnam into an internal Chinese province. China at this time was not a culturally unified state, and the Chinese ruled over many "foreign" peoples as subjects or vassals. Jiaozhi was on the periphery of Chinese control, and the Chinese government utilized local leaders and administrators to rule over local peoples. These administrators were trained in Confucian ideology, but also retained there local identities and religious backgrounds, and peoples in this region often mixed Buddhist and local traditional religions together to form a more Vietnamese style ideology.

To the south of Jiaozhi, a kingdom called Cham arose. It took advantage of its strategic maritime position to develop valuable trading routes with China, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. This kingdom heavily incorporated Hindu and Buddhist traditions from India, mixing them with more local customs. These people were culturally separate from the Vietnamese of the north, and resisted Chinese attempts at expansion into the region. To the south of the central Cham kingdom, the Mekong delta was dominated by a collection of Khmer tribes more related to neighbouing Cambodians than the Vietnamese and Cham peoples of the north. The Chinese led domination of the north lasted for almost a thousand years, and this incubation of Chinese and Vietnamese culture led to a nominally Sinicized elite ruling over a more traditionally minded Vietnamese mass. These local people kept there own culture and religion, and sometimes resisted Chinese domination. The Sinicized elite of Jiaozhi took advantage of the cycle of growth and decay common in Chinese dynastic history to claim independence, and after the collapse of the Tang dynasty, largely succeeded. This new kingdom, called Dai Viet, incorporated both Chinese thought and local traditions to build a cultural distinct Viet polity in Northern Vietnam.

Throughout its history, Dai Viet would attempt its own Imperial expansion by fighting wars of conquest in central-Southern Vietnam, and into neighbouring Laotian and Cambodian kingdoms. It also attempted to maintain its independence from China, as further Chinese dynasties grew and fell, holding off invasions from the mongol-Yuan dynasty, for example. Even so, the Viet began to import Buddhist and Confucian scholars from China in order to build there own national and state-backed ideals. They mixed these teachings with local myths, legends and personalities to form a unique Viet identity that they then tried to export to southern and central Vietnam. At times throughout history, the Dai Viet kingdom began to take the form it would largely hold as a French colony - that of Indochina. Viet military leaders expanded control over southern Vietnam, into Laos, and Cambodia, and tried there hand at cultural dominance in these regions. Far from being a long time puppet of foreign powers, Vietnam has also had its share of imperial expansion and cultural homogenization.

Eventually, the French began to take interest in Vietnam. Catholic missionaries from France and the nearby Philippines (Spanish possession) began to infiltrate Vietnam and convert locals. Viet leaders looked at these incursions as potential threats, and eventually began to crack down on Catholic and other religious minorities to try and centralize Vietnam along Japanese lines - utilizing a unique brand of Confucian paternalism and local customs and myth-building to ideologically control there imperial populations. This led to eventual confrontation with France/Spain, and the French conquest of a region in the south - now called Cochinchina. The French further spread there influence over Cambodia and into Laos, and eventually conquered the entire Indochinese area and creating the colony of Indochina. They split this region into five administrative zones largely based on historical separations - Cambodia, Laos, Cochinchina (the southern Mekong region of Vietnam), Annam (the central region of Vietnam) and Tonkin (the northern region).

The French utilized local mandarin bureaucrats to maintain control over the colony, and at first sought to centralize and "civilize" there colony along French lines. Colonial administrators were at first military figures from the French navy, but soon civilian administration took over. Local Vietnamese peoples were often conflicted on how to act. Cooperation was common, with local bureaucrats, but also with the French puppet monarchy and many modernizers in Vietnam who though France was the best way to modernize Vietnam into a nation-state. These Vietnamese collaborators sought education in the French Empire, going to Paris for education, gaining French citizenship, and trying to apply French models at the local level. A rival school developed that turned to Meiji Japan for ideas. Japan in the 1800's was Asia's first nation to modernize along Western lines, and Japan became a central location for nationalists to study, organize and arm. Many Vietnamese nationalists traveled to Japan, and also to China to assist in nationalist struggles, learn nationalist rhetoric, and study models for development. These two schools bred competing nationalist interests - one centered on France and professing for a slow development and eventual independence within the French Empire as a commonwealth state (much like Britain and its colonies), and the other looking at revolutionary tactics to decolonize the area and expel the French.

Although nationalism did exist in Vietnam, French influence did change much on the ground. Catholicism became more popular. The French began to exploit divisions inside Vietnam to maintain control, empowering local groups like the Hao Hao, and Cao Di religious extremist groups in southern Vietnam. They also divided Vietnam into northern, central and southern regions, much like how Vietnam had been before its Imperial period. The Latinization of the Vietnamese language also occurred at this time, which France sought to use as a language to tie Vietnam into the French orbit, but has the unintentional consequence of making foreign political texts more easily translatable. French texts like those of Rousseau began to be read by nationalist elite, and revolutionary works by Chinese, Japanese, and Communist authors came pouring into the country. French instability after there loss in the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 caused some chaos in the colony, and gave the nationalists the idea that France was a weak ruler, and could not successfully run Vietnam as a state.

This led to increasing revolts by local Vietnamese peoples, followed by crackdowns by the French in a cycle of repression and revolt that only exacerbated thoughts of independence. A major revolt in 1908 was brutally suppressed by colonial forces, killing many hundreds of Vietnamese peasants. This led to both horror and revulsion in Vietnam, and at home as France grappled with the Dreyfus affair and began to move toward more Socialist politics. This led to both an easing of political repression in Vietnam, and a move toward a more radically communist nationalism. French administrators began to promise more lenient rule, and a slow movement toward eventual independence along commonwealth lines. These promises empowered the collaborationist camp, and led to thoughts of internal democratic participation. This however, was a step to far for the French, who denied Vietnamese delegates the right to make decisions internally for the colony, and eventually disenfranchisement of nationalists who sought cooperation with France.

As WWII got underway, France was quickly invaded by the Nazi's, and Petain supporters gained power in Vietnam. The Japanese swiftly moved in to Vietnam to take control of its geostrategic location, and at first utilized local French administrators who were sympathetic to nationalistic style rule. However, as WWII came to a close in 1945, the Japanese sought to oust the French and turn Vietnam independent (albeit under Japanese control), forming the short lived Empire of Vietnam, run by France's puppet Emperor turned nationalist. This state was short lived, but lit a fire in terms of Vietnamese national consciousness. The Empire reorganized states, merged the three separate colonies into one entity, and implemented new political elite from local peoples. After Japan lost the war, there soldiers remained in Vietnam. The allies sought to disarm them, and French troops moved into the South, while Chinese nationalist troops took the North. The Chinese had no interest in seeing a resurgent French colony, and empowered local Nationalists along the lines of China's internal party at the time. The French sought to reestablish there authority in the region in order to retake there colonial empire.

A third party existed at the time; the communists under Ho Chi Minh. The communists began to operate in Vietnam as part of the broader nationalist front, and cooperated closely with Soviet internationalist Comintern directive. They cooperated largely in China's united front against Japan, and received training, arms and material in Chiang Ki-Sheck's military academies in southern China. The communists in Vietnam sought to seek wider power through cooperation with nationalist forces in a united front against French forces. They participated in the war with Japan, and China installed Ho Chi Minh in power in Vietnam in order to combat Japanese troops on his southern flank. Although the Chinese considered removing the communists from power as there war with the Chinese Communists flared up, they largely left them in power due to lack of ability to oust them, and the rapidly decaying situation at home. This led to a briefly unified Vietnam under a nationalist coalition. However, ideological differences saw more right leaning nationalists to seek French aid in ousting the Communists, leading to the occupation of southern Vietnam by French forces eager to reestablish there colonial presence. This led to a split in Vietnam, as the communists cemented power in the North, and the French in the south.

The two Vietnam's came to participate in the larger conflagration between the USSR and USA on a global scale. The Americans propped up French Vietnam as a better alternative to Northern communist Vietnam. The Northern state was largely supported by Soviet and Chinese communist forces after they took power in 1949. The French were largely against a unified Vietnam unless under French control, and vetoed any attempt by the Americans at building a coalition system based on democracy. Instead, the Americans sought to avoid French hostility in their need to build a larger European alliance aligned against the USSR. The French terms were control in Vietnam. Evens so, the North began to crack down internally on dissidents and build a communist state based on collectivist and Maoist principles. They then initiated guerilla warfare against the south, as France began to maneuver to retake their old colonial territory. This war became costly for the French, who were also dealing with colonial chaos in their other colonies in Africa. As Vietnamese forces began to turn the French back, and eventually defeated the French in the historic battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French began to seek an exit.

This exit alarmed the Americans, who had been funding about 80% of the cost of the French's war with the Communists. The Americans began to take a greater role in southern Vietnam, first propping up the South as a rival regime, and then sending in advisors and eventually combat troops into Vietnam. This happened over a longer period. The south Vietnamese state began to take shape as a authoritarian style state in the vein of Taiwan and South Korea, two other American backed states in Asia. South Vietnamese politicians attempted developmentalist reforms along these lines, initiating there own rival land reform schemes, and seeking aid and assistance from Western backers. However, a lack of centralized control in south Vietnam led to corruption, and the growth of rival power groups in the Buddhist community, and in extremist splinter groups like the Cao Di and the Hao Hao. The south Vietnamese government began to crack down on these dissident groups, but this backfired as chaos began to reign in the south. This allowed the Northern state to being its infiltration of the south, setting up rival administrations in rural areas, and contesting southern control in various regions. It also caused the Americans to lose faith in their puppet, and initiate a coup d'etat and install a military government.

Increasing hostility between the north and south led to open warfare, as the North sought to reunite the nation through force of arms, and the Americans sought to keep them apart. The US commitment to this region began to accelerate into open warfare, as the US eventually sent many hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Vietnam, and committed massive amounts of money and material to the war. Millions of Vietnamese would lose there lives in this war, which led to terrifying bombing campaigns, and inter-communal violence across Vietnam and into Laos and Cambodia. The North came out ahead through its use of guerilla tactics and declining American interest in the war, leading eventually to the evacuation of US troops in 1975 and the annexation of south Vietnam by the North. Communist regimes also took power in Cambodia and Laos.

Vietnam after 1975 began to utilize communist ideology to try and integrate the culturally distinct south into a new unified sphere. The south had spent decades as a separate entity, with a larger degree of Western influence, commodification of the economy, and susceptible to greater global influences. The North sought to disrupt this by nationalizing the powerful Chinese merchant lobby in the south, and reeducating thousands of local bureaucrats and administrators. Land reform also took place, although this was less disruptive than in China due to the south's previous expirements and success with developmentalist land reform. A growing Sino-Soviet split in the late 70's, however, led to increasing tensions in southeast Asia. Vietnam had sought to support its communist brethren in Laos and Cambodia, but Cambodia's Khmer Rouge would have none of it. This genocidal group was largely backed by China for its more nationalistic brand of Communism, while Laos and Vietnam increasingly cooperated and were backed by the Soviets. The Vietnamese timed there crackdown on the Chinese community in Vietnam with growing tensions with Deng Xiaoping's modernizing China, which was increasingly improving ties with the West. This led to open warfare between Vietnam and China in 1980, as Chinese troops entered Vietnam, and swiftly occupying northern Vietnam before departing. Vietnam got the message, and its attempts to influence other southeast Asian nations and its hostility to the Khmer largely ended and Vietnam began to focus inwardly.

From 1991 onward, Vietnam has begun to develop along Chinese lines. While largely holding power to this day, the Communist government has begun to espouse more market-orientated development strategies while maintaining centralized political control. This development has slowly turned Vietnam into another "Asian Tiger." Even so, it has maintained its hostility to China, and has largely warmed ties with the US, who seek to use Vietnam's important naval bases to increase their control over the south China sea. Vietnam retains border disputes with China in this coastal area, as well as with other states in the region. Vietnam has faced similar problems with this rapid development. Nationalism largely aimed at Chinese businesses and residents in prevalent. Hostilities and disputes do remain with some of its neighbours. Corruption is an issue due to the centralized nature of the Vietnamese government, and the retention of power by the Communist elite. Even so, Vietnam's rapid development has brought many out of poverty, while increasing internal pressures to increase individual rights and political participation. Vietnam has maintained a cult around Ho Chi Minh, who is in state in a similar fashion to Lenin in Russia and Mao in China.Clearly the history of Vietnam continues to develop in an interesting fashion, with internal struggles, rivalries and successes continuing to play out into the future.

Goshcha has written an excellent account of Vietnamese history, focusing on internal Vietnamese factors, and largely disputing the exceptionalist versions of Vietnam that show them as as a homogeneous people dominated by evil foreign empires in from China and the West. Contrary to this, Vietnam has largely developed as separate and competing states and people groups, and has had its own experimentation with Imperial domination and attempts at cultural assimilation. This book is a great and relatively concise read on the subject of Vietnamese history, and touches on aspects of politics, global history, economics, and cultural and social changes. This is a great modern history on Vietnam as a nation. Although lacking in depth in some areas, especially Vietnam's history during its Dai Viet period, this book is largely concise, inward looking, and thoughtful. Not to be missed by those who wish to brush up on a modern account of Vietnamese history.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This massive, sweeping history presents itself as politically neutral, on a topic on which it's hard to imagine such a thing (though the atrocity of the American war stretches even the author's even-handedness). At times its actual centre-right position is pretty obvious - a little reference to 'Maoist brainwashing', an ending where you expect something (anything) about the factories of modern Vietnam being given over to an exploration of non-Viet minorities that should have been integrated with the rest of the book, and a forever-1989 account of individuals and civil society in the present day pushing against the government's limits on freedom of speech. But: this is a very good book! It tells an at times astonishing but often labyrinthine story both with great depth and a vast range of sources, and also with considerable patience for the reader (in this case, me) who knows only the basics. It also has very extensive footnotes that can take you in the various directions he doesn't go.

[Peter A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up in the United States in the late 1960’s, Vietnam received a lot of coverage. Being a male of a “draftable” age, it also focused me a great deal on Vietnam. After I visited Vietnam for the first time in 2007, I started forming new impressions of the country and its people. Subsequent visits only increased my desire to learn more about Vietnam. When I started looking for books about the country, most of what I uncovered focused on the period of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Finally, I discover the book by Christopher Goscha, and read several reviews that were all very positive. Thus, I read it.

Overall this book is very insightful and well researched. As the subtitle of the book states, and the author argues in his opening pages, that given recent research it is time to write a new history. “It still takes into account this country’s position in a coveted part of the world where empires collide, but it also emphasizes Vietnam’s own role in shaping its history and highlights the country’s extraordinary diversity and complexity. Most importantly, it emphasizes that there has never been one Vietnam but several remarkably varied ones.”

The author presents a very interesting perspective about Vietnam, through focused chapters and how narrates the chapters. In each chapter, he also provides a very nice lead section that help illustrate what we are going to discover in the chapter.

After reading the book and the insights therein, my view of Vietnam has deepened. In many ways, Vietnam is a mixture of cultures; not just of the French influence, but more importantly of the multiple groups that populated Vietnam over at least the last two thousand years. Vietnam is a story of how one group, the Viet, ultimately expanded from the north and “colonized” the rest of what we now know as Vietnam (and of course the influence into Laos and Cambodia). The current national boundaries are relatively recent (say 1940’s). It is also the story of nationalism, strong desire to be independent of France, US, and China, of the different approaches (republicanism from the French, communism from the Soviet Union and China) to state building and statecraft. The book also shows the ugly side of politics gone awry, the plunge into the Vietnam war without thinking about the consequences – an important lesson for today - for not wanting to back down; and how global politics can play out and influence local issues.

I very much appreciated the final chapter and conclusion. The final chapter, “Vietnam from Beyond the Red River”, talks about the many other ethnic groups that are part of the larger story. The conclusion, “Authoritarianism, Republicanism, and Political Change” points to the ongoing dynamics that continue to influence Vietnam into its future, with a hint of the staying power of republicanism in the Vietnam.

A note to the author: I appreciate the maps and the brief summary of abbreviations. I wish there were an annotated list of “key characters”, with an indication of when and where they appear in this story.

A note to potential readers: You will learn a great deal from this book. However, there are many details (and names), and you may feel overwhelmed with these details.

Other Books: Since 2015 at least three books with a more comprehensive look at Vietnam has been published.

Current Book: Vietnam: A New History, Christopher Goscha (published September 2016, 592 pages)

Two other books that look interesting and seem to have very good reviews are
Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Tim, Ben Kiernan (published March 2017, 656 pages, https://www.amazon.com/Viet-Nam-Histo...
and
Descending Dragon, Rising Tiger: A History of Vietnam, Vu Hong Lien and Peter Sharrock (published January 2015, 272 pages)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780233647/...

I would be interested to hearing from those who read any of these books, or others.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm no SE Asia specialist, but this is easily one of the best histories of a state/region I've read over the last few years reading a history of every country in the world.
I'm sure there are those who will find something to gripe about, no matter what their political stripe. After all, that's what that stripe is for (much like a skunk). For the layfolk, this is a grand book, balancing enough ancient past for precedent's sake with enough modern stuff, thankfully giving the Second Indochinese War (here in the States, we call it 'Nam or, "the shit") a decent, respectable section without going overboard. As for political balance, I think Goscha does his best with what will prove to be an area of study possessed of an interminable sense of controversy. The war was fucking terrible and he makes that clear, and all sides share in the blame.
What I liked best was his approach to Vietnam itself, as a state, finding the whole idea of "European colonialism" sufficient in one sense but one-sided in another, for Vietnam itself was very much a colonial state. The S-shape came from Nguyen conquests all the way done to the Mekong and back. Folks in the highlands were colonized and Vietnized just as the Viet were Frenchified and colonized. (The French come out the worse in all this.)
Nothing is as clear cut. Diem was just as rank and guilty of despicable acts against his own people as much as Ho Chi Minh was. America's SE Asia policy was horrible, but so was China's, and Goscha spends some time discussing the third wave of conflict in the area involving Cambodia and Vietnam.
Overall, a great book. The highland peoples and Viet culture only get one chapter each, near the end, but as it is largely a political narrative, I found that acceptable.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book as prep for a trip to Vietnam. I do not usually enjoy history books, preferring to get my history through historical fiction. But this was very accessible even for me and helped me to understand the recent history of Vietnam.

[Alia R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book as part of a conscientious choice to educate myself on the history of Vietnam to create a more enriching experience when visiting the country itself. That said, I wanted to be sure that the material I chose would be outside of the lens that has been purveyed by the mainstream media. Though it might be facile to designate that “mainstream media” as US media, a quick trip to the bookstore for books on Vietnam would easily suggest otherwise. Almost exclusively, one would find books on the Vietnam War (also known as the second Indochina war), and often written with, to an extent, an anti-communist narrative. I would have honestly settled for an interstitial read had the book not been focused on the second Indochina war. This book, however, delivers on all fronts as it covers the important facets of Vietnamese history, where although comprehensive (in terms of my period of interest), not at all convoluted.

Below are some of the interesting points/ arguments that I found;

1. The book recognizes and acknowledges that to begin a book, there must be a starting point. Though it may not reflect all the civilizations that have risen and fallen in what is known as Vietnam today, the starting point should at least be indicative of what propels the historical narrative moving forward. Hence, the focal point of the book is heavy on the Viet people, even when accounting for the “origin” of Vietnam from the Chinese colonial times / indirect rule.
2. Building on the first point, Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country, and this is often time overlooked. The “Viet” in Vietnam would be a misnomer if it were an indication of a homogenous society. Predating the formation of what is known as Vietnam today, many different empires roamed the land and conquered different parts of modern-day Vietnam such as the Chams, the Khmer, and the Chinese. Eventually, the Nguyen empire come to be the prevalent power in Vietnam through acts of colonization, just as how their French successors came to power. Notwithstanding, conquered land does not eradicate the history of the people, even at the conquest of creating an ethnocentric narrative.
3. Like many empires in history, the Nguyen empire experienced epochs and nadirs. Oftentimes, the leadership of the emperors/ kings is touted as the driving force that promulgates this cycle. However, in an empire where technology is outdated and a leader inherits a corrupt government, to begin with, can this tide of change be stymied in the first place? Emperor Gai Long is known to be the unifier of what is known as modern Vietnam, but it was only Emperor Minh Mang who reified those borders in an attempt to create the modern nation-state rooted in the Chinese Confucius mandarin governments. The later emperors on the other hand were notorious for being avaricious, corrupt, and prodigious with state spending for personal gains, thus causing the fall of the empire at the hands of the French. However, to make such syllogistic conclusions are usually specious as it only paints a reductive picture. The abdication of Emperor Bao Dai for some might be perceived as a move of subservience to the French colonial power, but in reality, the move was to stymie the efforts of the French government from manipulating the crown through the creation of a puppet monarchy. I can attest that the same narration is spouted when visiting the citadel of Hue by the government-certified tour guides. A deeper dig in history uncovers how the final emperor eventually seals his alliance with the State of Vietnam (south with the Diem Brothers), instead of with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (north with HCM’s party).
4. Communism hinged on autocracy is untenable in the long run. A single-party system will not have a moderating force as loyalty takes precedence over merit, no matter how noble the original cause is. Hence, critiques become suppressed and over time, persecuted for not conforming, thus creating an ivory tower as rulers rule by decree.

Some of the things that I have failed to mention such as the atrocities of war wielded by the Americans to aggrandize their political influence, the different factions (“reformists”) of communism that arouse within the socialist party, and the immediate implications of the unification of Vietnam are all things that I would suppose as information that is more easily available and known. Moreover, the exclusion from the points listed is mostly due to this book being compact with information, and to write them all would require a mental fortitude which I do not have. That said, I have learned a lot and could not have chosen a better book than this.

[Anthony Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is lots of good material in this book, but a reader hoping for insight into the less well-trod portions of modern Vietnamese history will be disappointed. After promising to focus on Vietnam's story beyond colonialization, the French arrive in chapter two, and precious little time is spent on Vietnam's economic modernization or indeed anything post 1975. Ethnic minorities are handled in a brief, tacked on section at the end of the book rather than being included with the main narrative.

If you are looking for one book to give you a sweeping overview of Vietnam's transition from colonialism to independence, this is a good pick, but a reader already familiar with the country will be disappointed.

[✨ jami ✨]

interesting content but terrible structure

[KB · Rating 3 out of 5]

The amount of pleasure I got from reading this was basically zero. Some of it is my own fault. I know I rarely enjoy these general, expansive histories, yet I still buy them or consider buying them. There's just too much information to take in. However, this book seemed particularly detailed and I think the generally chronological structure gets lost in these details. It really weighed the book down when you're already trying to process and remember so much new information. This detail would have been fine for main events, but I felt like it's actually placed elsewhere. I don't know if that was helpful... or interesting.

Incredibly well researched and very well organized - for that I'm going to give it three stars, although that doesn't reflect the enjoyment factor, which for me was 2 stars. The book is long, the font is small. Be prepared.

[WaldenOgre · Rating 4 out of 5]

作为一个中国人，翻看越南的历史，感受恐怕会比绝大多数的外国读者要来得复杂得多。

一方面，因为越南的历史和中国自身的历史有着长久的羁绊和纠葛；另一方面，从血腥的内战、共产党对曾经的民主党派盟友的驯服、残酷的土改、计划经济及其导致的饥荒、与自己一度大力支持过的共产党邻国兵戎相见、需要用犯过巨大错误的已故领导人的尸体来维持统治合法性，一直到开启经济改革并因此面临新时代下的社会挑战，以及现代民族国家神话之下被刻意淡化的内部殖民历史和民族矛盾，越南俨然就是中国的一个绝佳镜像。

此外，长期以来，我对于那段时期里苏联-中国-越南-柬埔寨之间高度复杂、层层渗透的合作、博弈与冲突的细节一直只有模模糊糊的认知。如今，它们才终于通过阅读本书大致得以澄清和理顺。

在全书末尾，作者高夏表示，当代越南内部的不同声音，究竟是“绝望的杂音”还是开启全新未来的一个契机，仍有待观察。我想，对中国而言，情况也是一样的。

一切都悬而未决。从今往后，越南和中国必定都需要很多的努力和很多的运气。

[Laika · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my third history book of the year, and is about what you’d expect from the title and knowing it’s written by an academic historian – right down to the solid 100 pages of notes and citations at the end of it. I honestly picked it up because, well, because there was a tumblr post with a really intriguing quote from it floating around a few weeks back, and because I haven’t read any East/South-East Asian histories in a couple of years, and most of all because my library had a copy with no one ahead of me in the line for it.

The basic conceit of the book is that a great many English (and French) language histories that purport to be about Vietnam are in fact about the Vietnam War. That is, they are in truth about the years from 1945 to 1975, with the whole rest of history being either prelude or denouement, and, what’s worse, that they’re at least implicitly histories of Vietnam from the perspective of Americans. So it is trying to be a corrective, writing from the viewpoint of the Vietnamese and paying more attention to internal developments and contradictions than either Cold War grand strategy or the minutia of military operations. It...mostly succeeds?

The book’s very much...I want to say postcolonial, but honestly it’s been so long since I was in an actual seminar I’m probably butchering the term. Anyway, it is very suspicious of both colonial mythology and the sort of patriotic, anticolonial propaganda that a distorted version of is probably the median western anglophone’s only exposure to Vietnamese history. The book Fire in the Lake comes in for a lot of criticism, both in its own right and just as a synecdoche for the whole corpus of work that subordinated careful history or sociology with presenting Vietnamese history as one monolithic tale of glorious resistance to foreign imperialism – which, whatever its merits as political interventions in the America they were published in (then doing its level best to bomb the country into a corpse-strewn hellscape), simplify and exaggerate the actual history they’re telling to the point of deception.

Which really starts with the idea that there’s a singular, coherent Vietnam that has a history vanishing into the ancient past, let alone one always on the side of resistance and independence. The first several chapters of the book are devoted to Vietnam’s precolonial history, with a great deal of emphasis paid to the fact that its present borders are the result of a multi-generational imperial project of conquest, forced assimilation and mass settlement that was still active and ongoing as the French first moved in to colonize Cochinchina. This is complimented by an admittedly slightly tacked-on feeling section at the end of the main narrative that’s basically an explicit counterhistory, covering the same period of the rest of the book from the perspective of the Cham and the highland peoples who ultimately lost out to the Viet and Vietnamese state-making projects.

The book makes a whole organizing principle out of analogizing this Viet colonial project with first the Chinese (both Han and Ming) and later the French colonization of both the Viet and the whole region. It’s very interested in how they interacted with each other, as well – how post-Ming Viet rulers used Confucian/Han high culture to differentiate themselves from other SEAsian peoples and justify conquering them, how the French often continued and intensified campaigns of Viet settlement so as to have easily legible labor to exploit, how the romanized script introduced to make colonial administration easier became the medium of nationalist mass politics, that sort of thing.

The meat of the book is dedicated to the French colonial period and to a lesser extent the wars of independence, focused on the different national and colonial projects dedicated to developing or creating a ‘Vietnam’ or ‘Indochina’ or ‘Tonkin’ or what have you. Something it keeps returning to is that neither the French nor the Viet nor the various highland peoples ever had any singular, unified project they were all united behind – internal contradictions were often just as great as the conflicts between them.

Which, even if I didn’t know for a fact, I more or less took as a given regarding the colonized. But I really hadn’t realized how riven with contradictions and self-defeating the whole French colonial project was? There actually were fairly significant constituencies among the Vietnamese intelligentsia and bourgeoisie for the whole schema of colonial republicanism, for a liberal capitalist or social democratic state in some sort of wider French orbit. The French, in turn, used them or imprisoned them seemingly at random, and gave them basically nothing but words. The Catholic Church was better at indigenizing its hierarchy than the French Republic. They made the British in India look like reasonable honest brokers! (The end result of all this being, of course, that anyone who’d been willing to work with the French on anything but mercenary terms ended up marginal and delegitimized.)

The reasoning is pretty obvious (in that it mostly just boils down to ‘le racisme’), but it is kind of interesting how right up until the end the French colonial authorities were convinced Vietnam was a land of naturally conservative, traditionalist Confucian peasants, and that if they could just get a pliant Emperor to play the part and establish his ‘natural connection’ to the mandarinate and the peasantry the whole nation would be at peace. (Relatedly, Bo Dai’s whole biography reads like a parable).

Goscha’s natural sympathies are pretty clearly with what you might call the cultural intelligentsia, especially as the book moves through the war years. The members of the Literary Self Strengthening Movement, the writers of pacifist novels, poets and academics. The tragedy of inconvenient artists, whose perspective on the war was too bleak or mournful for either the Communists or the Nationalists and who ended up repressed regardless of which side of the partition they were on, gets a particular focus.

As does the similar fate of liberal democratic nationalists – the political tendencies Goscha pretty explicitly sympathizes with. He holds something of a grudge for how the Communist Party formed coalitions or alliances with these groups then systematically sidelined or violently suppressed them as soon as it was tactically convenient – but he’s also pretty clear-eyed that the French, Diem regime, and Americans did more or less the exact same thing as needed. The whole process is portrayed as a bit of a tragedy.

Despite the book’s professed intentions, the war years still eat up something like a third of its page count – but in its defence, those pages are far more interested in nation-building an cultural shifts than the specifics of military operations (with the two exceptions of Dien Bien Phu and the Tet Offensive, for obvious reasons). As far as high politics go, the book loses interest in the Nationalists almost entirely after the fall of Diem, which has the effect of portraying the American client governments that followed as hopeless and purely mercenary even compared to the plantation owners who collaborated with the French.

The sections covering post-reunification Vietnam are easily the book’s weakest, which is rather a shame. It’s essentially one long epilogue – the section on the Chinese invasion and the events preceding it was tantalizing and just crying out for more details (and I, uh, did not realize the degree to which the government just fell back on discourses of near-explicit racism and collective responsibility re: the large Chinese ethnic minority, especially in the south).

The rest of the book after that – there’s a passage I read at an impressionable age, about how every history book since the ‘90s has been obliged to end with a hopeful chapter about the connective power of the internet and the rising middle class and the irresistible spread of freedom and democracy, and how as time goes on more and more things happen but that future never seems to really get any closer. This is not a perspective I’d really generally endorse (certainly less so now than in peak End of History years), but it’s one that really comes to mind reading the book’s perspective on the years since the economic reforms and opening to global markets. Power and government policy are talked about in vague, general terms, and individual activists and civil society members are highlighted and lionized instead. The talk about how the communist party has functionally transitioned into a class-iniclusive formation legitimized by nationalism and consistent economic growth and how that growth might in time force it to liberalize sounds identical to how people talked about China in the 2000s.

(The tragic irony that, from 10,000 feet, the United States has everything it might have wanted out of Vietnam – strategic partner against China, enthusiastic participant in the mechanisms of global capitalism – and killed millions of people over a decade of warfare for functionally nothing is repeatedly remarked upon.)

Anyway, that disappointment aside, still a very interesting and informative book. Not one that really lives up to its promise, and its strongest chapters are specifically those focused on the more distant past – but even its weakest chapters still have at least some interesting anecdotes thrown in for colour. Potentially grading a bit generously because I’m comparing this to my last big 600 page history book in my head, but I don’t at all regret reading this one.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly exhaustive and extensive account of modern Vietnam and is clearly the work of a skilled authority, backed up with a whole myriad of research. Goscha has done a fine job of tracking the history from the early settlers through to colonialism, colonial collaboration, colonial expansion, through various warring dynasties and demonstrates how seemingly outside events like the Opium Wars and the Cold War came to impact on Vietnamese shores. He traces the horrendous events of the 20th century through three Indochinese conflicts and the eventual Modernisation.

Goscha illustrates how the legacy and influence of around 1000 years of Chinese rule and around 80 years of French rule have been absorbed to help create the Vietnam of today. He describes the Nguyen state era, with compelling characters like Minh Mang. We see how Confucianism, Catholicism and Buddhism fought for supremacy amidst an ever shifting political, religious and territorial landscape. He also shows us how the country managed to form and shape its own culture, partly through the long standing Sino-Franco influence but how they transformed an identity of their own with the introduction of the Quoc Ngu script. We see that the Vietnam as most of the world knows it has never really existed for long as one, united nation.

The US apparently subsidised around 80% of France’s campaign against Vietnam during the first Indochina War before getting involved directly and causing the Second Indochina War (or Vietnam War). I was unaware that an estimated 5000 to 15000 people were murdered by the communists during the 50s before the US intervened. It was a harsh regime which encouraged children to spy on their parents and neighbours to denounce each other. Apparently both North and South Vietnam indulged in human rights abuses, arbitrary arrests, torture, censorship, executions, forced labours and use of concentration camps before the Americans got involved.

Goscha produces the horrifying facts and stats about the hugely imbalanced Vietnam War and the appalling consequences, particularly for innocent civilians and minority hill tribes. The legacy of the war continued for years afterwards with hundreds of thousands of boat people fleeing to places like the US, Canada, France and Australia. It took the reforms of 1986 to eventually lead the country into taking some large, though measured and limited steps towards capitalism and the nation seems to have grown steadily since then eventually becoming the 3rd largest exporter of rice in the world and the 2nd biggest producer of coffee.

This was an interesting read that should please scholars and the history/Vietnam enthusiast alike. There were times when it was maybe a little too dry and detailed, but that’s sometimes the price you have to pay for such a well-researched and detailed work.

[J N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trong cuốn sách này của mình, Goscha đưa ra luận điểm rất rõ ràng (từ phần mở đầu):

Sự kiện diễn ra tại Việt Nam trong hai thế kỷ (19-20) = Identity + Political Purpose

Trong đó, “căn tính Việt Nam” là yếu tố quan trọng nhất trong câu chuyện đấu tranh và thống nhất đất nước. Căn tính Việt Nam không chỉ có 1, ngược lại, nó bao gồm nhiều mảnh ghép (mosaic). Mỗi mảnh ghép là sự tạo dựng của lịch sử, ngôn ngữ, dân tộc và môi trường xã hội trong suốt nhiều năm. Chính vì thế, theo tác giả, vốn dĩ không có “một Việt Nam” duy nhất và thống nhất! Toàn bộ cuốn sách là nỗ lực của Goscha trong việc cởi bỏ các nếp gấp về ý thức hệ, giáo dục và ngôn ngữ để nhìn thấy những Việt Nam như vậy!

Sách có 14 chương, bắt đầu từ thời Thục Phán, Hai Bà Trưng cho đến năm 1975. Trong đó, Goscha tập trung làm rõ luận điểm của mình trong giai đoạn Pháp thuộc và Mỹ thay chân Pháp ở miền Nam Việt Nam. Nhìn chung có rất nhiều điểm khiến mình thích cuốn sách này, mình có thể tóm tắt những nội dung sau:
Sử dụng các cụm từ phân biệt các nhóm quan điểm chính trị tại Indochina, Cochinchina, Tonkin và Annam (mình không dịch ra tiếng Việt để đỡ bị đánh gậy =)))) chứ không dùng duy nhất một cụm từ Cộng sản hoặc chống Cộng
Cho thấy sự khác biệt về mặt dân tộc và chính sách ở từng khu vực, từ thời Nguyễn Ánh cho đến khi Pháp đến. Đặc biệt, cuốn sách còn cho thấy sự đặc sắc và đa dạng của vùng đất Nam Bộ (vùng đất tôi yêu <3), giúp mình càng hiểu rõ hơn mâu thuẫn xảy ra ở đây từ năm 53 đến Đổi mới :) )
Các chính sách nhằm giảm sự khác biệt của các khu vực, trong đó có Tây Nguyên và nhóm FULRO
Quan điểm về Hồ Chí Minh và một số cán bộ thời điểm đó
Có thêm góc nhìn về tính chất của trận Điện Biên Phủ (mình khá chắc là sẽ tìm đọc thêm The road to Dien Bien Phu của tác giả này)
…
Có rất nhiều điểm mà mình đã ghi lại sau khi đọc xong cuốn này mà không thể kể hết. Bên cạnh thông tin giúp mình hiểu rõ được Việt Nam của mình hơn, cuốn sách còn giúp mình nạp thêm một lượng lớn từ vựng về lịch sử (điều rất cần vì mình đang học một lớp Sử và mình bị dốt từ vựng!). Và còn là, nhóm thần tượng mình thích đã có thêm ông Nguyễn An Ninh! (Ngày xưa, cấp 2, mình học trường Nguyễn An Ninh; có thời gian ra quét đài tưởng niệm của ông ở nơi mình sống. Nhưng mình lúc đó dốt, chớ hề quan tâm ông là ai!)

Điều khiến mình không thích ở cuốn sách này là cách chia chương! Có một số chương không khiến mình hứng thú và cũng không hiểu sao được đặt ở đó. Nhưng nhìn chung, đây là một cuốn sách hay. Nếu phải giới thiệu một cuốn sách (kiểu giáo khoa) để đọc về lịch sử Việt Nam hiện đại, mình xin 100% gợi ý cuốn này. Sách viết đặc biệt đơn giản, không lòng vòng và cực kì dễ hiểu cho những người vừa bắt đầu học sử!

[Santino Raftellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of Vietnamese history and a joy to read as I travel Vietnam for the first time! Deeply fascinating to reflect on Vietnamese history amidst its role as both a coloniser and colonised at the intersection of so many great power rivalries. Despite such a harrowing and traumatic history, one cannot help but be struck by how happy, optimistic and industrious the Vietnamese people are. I have a newfound appreciation for the country, a nation which has just celebrated 80 years of Vietnamese statehood and independence on my trip to Hanoi. I throughly recommend this book for any traveller coming to Vietnam (alongside the many Bourdain episodes holidaying here).

[Jessica Lynette · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was A LOT. It felt like a firehose of information, and much of it went over my head. Most of what I knew about this country came from stories about the Vietnam War (or the Second Indochina War) and I appreciated how much more of the history this book covered - but I really struggled to follow any of it until Napoleon came up in the 1800’s. I enjoyed the writing style, and the balanced perspective of how this nation both colonized and was colonized. A complicated country with a lot of history and interesting details.

[Tam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Except for the last very last one, the remaining chapters are extremely engaging, rather balanced, concise with such digestible ordering. The book tells a nuanced entire history story of Vietnam, giving voices to many sides, the overlooked sides. And I like that Goscha sees Ho Chi Minh with no veneration no filtered beauty, so different from other books’ opinions.

[Andrés Pertierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really helpful intro on Vietnamese history, focused primarily on political and military history, from pre-history up to the 2010s. Genuinely appreciated how he attempts to over an overview that helped me understand the perspectives of historical actors on all sides of various conflicts, and went out of his way to talk about non-ethnic Vietnamese peoples and their role in the country’s history.

[Ezra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good overall history of Vietnam. It learned a lot from it and gained a wider perspective. It focused a lot on wars, and I was hoping it would go more into cultural aspects. But it covers thousands of years of history in one book, so it can't cover everything.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good general history of the country and the war.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Handige intro tot de Vietnamese geschiedenis. Hadden wat meer ooggetuigenverslagen e.d. in mogen zitten.

[Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the positive side, I now know a huge amount more about how Vietnam developed into the unitary state that it became, for the first time, after 1975, and how the regional tensions within the country persisted over several centuries (and probably right up to the present time). And my knowledge of the pretty disastrous French colonial period has gone from practically nothing to a reasonable amount, as has my awareness of how Ho Chi Minh and the DRV interacted with the Chinese and Soviet states from the 1920s until the end of the twentieth century.

But, I have to say it was immensely hard going at times. One of the problems being that keeping track of Vietnamese names was (for me) almost impossible. Another that the author seems to abhor data, so there are very few figures to help get the reader's mind immersed in the practical development of modern Vietnam. Additionally, despite being almost 500 pages long, Goscha's history seemed to me to be rather lacking in detail relating to where the actual power lay at various periods -- particularly the four decades since unification -- and how that power has been wielded, and what the reaction of the Vietnamese people has been to all this.

Informative, yes. Big holes in the narrative, however, and not exactly an enjoyable read

[Mike Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

VIETNAM A New History lives up to its title. For the first time we discover all sides of the conflict, that's right, we get Vietnam's side,too. Both the North and the South and the groups at play in both.

The book takes us on a journey through Vietnam's history ands it turns out we were only one of many who had problems in the region. The book even shows us how disaster could happen again. As China and the U.S. tries to understand how to deal with each other this book becomes urgent. Best history of Vietnam I have ever read and author Christopher Goscha is now the top Vietnam historian.

For the first time, all sides of Vietnam. Including Vietnam's.

[Wiom biom · Rating 4 out of 5]

WELL i had high hopes for this book! not sure what i was expecting but halfway through i felt a bit disappointed and bored... there wasn't anything really impressive or breathtaking about it. maybe it's because i already know a bit about modern Vietnamese history so it didn't feel like I wasn't learning much.

anyways! some key takeawayssss

1. the Vietnamese people (ethnic-wise) were colonisers themselves! originating from around the red river delta (in the north of Vietnam), they eventually came to subdue the Cham and Khmers to form the s-shape of modern-day Vietnam.
2. a unified Vietnam did not exist until the 18th century when the three clans of the Dai Viet, Trinh, and Nguyen coexisted under the Le Dynasty and the Nguyen lords proceeded to expand southwards.
3. Vietnamese history has had an important relationship with Chinese history. when the Tang Dynasty collapsed, the Dai Nam 'seceded'. when the expansionist Ming rulers came to power, Dai Viet had to come under indirect Chinese rule again. additionally, confucianism (which came from China) has played a very important role in Vietnamese politics and society; rulers, from Gia Long to the French colonialists, have used the ideology to assert control over the vast territory of Indochina.
4. Bao Dai was not an invertebrate! for one, he was willing to abdicate to make way for a constitutional monarchy, he refused to play the role of a French puppet, he believed first and foremost in Vietnamese independence and then anti-Communism.
5. Diem's rule was not entirely a failure -- his rule was pretty successful from 1954 to 1957 as he rolled out land reform and garnered the support of religious groups.
6. The third indochina war was an absurd war... a giant blip in history honestly. also a perfect representation of american hypocrisy (esp. considering it happened during Jimmy Carter's presidency!)

[Eressea · Rating 4 out of 5]

其實早就看完了，偷懶沒寫記錄
再不寫就要忘記啦趕緊來寫一些

這本讀起來感覺不適合當入門書
作者擺明了要把重點放在近代
但我對冷戰歷史比較不熟悉
對作者的夾敘夾議寫法有點吸收不良

而我比較想知道自主的阮朝和保護國阮朝歷史
在本書裡只有兩章多一點，還要分給上古史跟阮朝以前的朝代
剩下的就散在殖民時期各章裡

不過篇幅雖少，還是有些收獲
以前讀的書主要是硬啃學校圖書館收的越南漢文歷史小說叢刊歷史類
都是文言文又沒地圖
加上越南人名字一大堆
同一人一堆不同稱呼沒作筆記很難認
最後只得到一堆混亂的印象
雖然後來讀了陳仲金的越南通史比較能串起來
但陳仲金只寫到越南失去自主之前
讀了本書才比較有個前後一致的概念~

最大的知識衝擊就是越南領土其實在很晚近才變成現在的樣貌
以前在讀古人寫的文獻時雖然也再再顯示出這種特點
但表現方式都是中國傳統的大一統思想，讓人有種錯覺古越南就是一統的越南
其實越南主體民族也是征服者，自從脫離中國統治後一路往南挺進
到了阮福映一統天下已經是十九世紀初了
過沒多久阮朝就被法國殖民又被分成好幾塊區域
直到越戰後才重新統一
越南人既是被壓迫的被殖民者，也是壓迫其他民族的殖民者

這是只看古書很難得到的印象
雖然微言大義一直都在啦
我的功力不足需要更淺顯的書來點醒
印象中以前讀到阮福映一統越南時
古人常常寫：辰天下初定，人心思黎
以前看不太懂，按照中國傳統思想
新政權一統天下那還有什麼空間讓你"人心思黎"
以前一直以為是因為黎朝成功對抗明朝的征服
才會有類似朝鮮大明崇貞萬萬年的心態
不想認同本為黎朝將領的阮福氏
直到讀了本書才想通：

事實上，西山有許多餘黨散布在中部與北部越南各處，潛入高地的人也不少。
在這些人心目中，一八零二年未必是一次決定性勝利。他們都知道所謂新王朝
復辟神話是公然謊言，當然不會接納這套以順化阮氏為越南傳統核心的說法。
許多人認為黎朝、紅河與河內才是越南認同、歷史與文化的真正源頭。

正因越南本來就沒有一統南北的傳統
阮福映才要加強宣揚儒家大一統思想
讓北方領土認同天命已經轉移到阮朝這邊啦

決定嗣君時阮福映不選擇有天主教傾向的太子景
而傳位給儒家的捍衛者明命帝，也是希望新皇帝能進一步中央集權吧
但明命帝集權的措施太猛，反而讓勉強有統一框架的南北領土叛亂蜂起
成了阮朝被法國殖民的主因之一

不過這論點似乎不是作者的創見
台灣學者寫的越南天主較史也有類似的說法

之後書就開始寫殖民和越戰了
為什麼法國那麼愛阮朝保護國的概念啊??
一路玩到越戰後還是很想重現王室
認為可以藉由儒家尊君思想，讓廣大農民歡喜接受阮朝皇帝
達到法國人間接統治的目的
但末代皇帝保大被騙了一兩回之後就不想跟法國人玩了
只是法國一直是很想要保大玩...
跟英國比起來，法國的殖民手段實在是很缺乏彈性

最終讀到越共一統越南，距離上次已經是一百多年後了
據說越共對嘉隆帝阮福映評價很差
但我看完整本書最大的感想是
越南今天的統治當局應該要對阮朝評價很高才對
沒有阮福氏一路往南開拓疆土，直到嘉隆統一南北
今天我們認識的越南就不會存在了

本書比較可惜的是作者不通中文
在古代史上只能借重間接資料
譯者也沒有想辦法找出原文
尤其有些地方我有印象看過原本的文言文
卻被翻成白話文，看起來好奇怪

越南史書在台灣不是那麼好找
但作者其實都有給出注釋，有心要找也不那麼困難
像是作者引用大越史記全書
譯者有辦法照抄原文
但引用大汕海外記事或中國史書就沒有
中國史書總比越南史書更好抄了吧?
既然大越史記全書譯者都能找出原文，為啥大汕的書抄不到
至少我就看過大汕海外記事的校注本~
(雖然是簡體的，但維基查得到大汕，就能進一步找到書了吧)

雖然南向在台灣又變成顯學
但台灣有出的書仍然沒幾本啊
越南通史目前這一本吧，還不是很好讀
如果可以的話搭配簡中翻譯的陳仲金越南通史一起讀
會更容易了解越南歷史
還有餘力的話就去讀越南漢文小說叢刊吧~
把信史用章回小說型式寫出來，是越南特有的文體
剩下的就是一些論文或專著了，市面上很難找到
期待有一天能出一本台灣人自己寫的越南通史

[Gannon Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

What originally piqued my interest in a comprehensive summary of Vietnam's history was not just the Vietnam War (2nd Indochina War), which I was already familiar with, or even the French Vietnamese War (1st Indochina War), which I knew vaguely about beforehand, but when I learned of the Third Indochina War, that resulted from their overthrow of the Khmer Rouge and then Chinas attempted invasion of the North. The fact that Vietnam not only experienced three back-to-back wars with major global superpowers was incredible, but the fact that they won them all was even more so. And that's not even including Japan's occupation, then removal.

Goscha was able to achieve an understandable and complete view of Vietnamese history and why it is where it is today. That alone makes this book worth reading.

Takeaways:

1. Goscha makes it clear that colonization was not unique to just France, but was also a pillar for the early Vietnamese dynasties. Following the Ming Empire's reconquest and evacuation of Vietnam, the Nguyen dynasty took some of their colonial practices with them. They continuously took land from the Cham and the Khmers over centuries, just as the French did to them.

2. Communism did not and has not had any success in Vietnam besides the fact that the DRV was the major force of decolonization. The Viet Minh, the communists, were the ones who took the lead on the anti-colonialism charge. Collectivism was once again a complete failure that destroyed incentives and caused widespread famines.

3. One last thing that I found interesting was that the French people had no desire for the empire that France was so concerned with keeping. All the death and destruction that was caused by trying to take what isn't yours could have easily been prevented.

I wish Goshca had had more images throughout the text so we would have known exactly where the "Mekong Delta" or "central highlands" were. Also, he constantly uses abbreviations and quick descriptions for complex organizations, and at times, it's hard to follow. All these acronyms add up to eventually make it hard to comprehend fully.

Vietnam has a history of resistance, and I believe this will continue.

[Sarah Yribarren]

I stopped reading about halfway which was still a lot of listening. I was reading to prepare myself and learn about Vietnam before/on the trip. But I would have been better off choosing various historical accounts of different eras from multiple perspectives and reading those. I think the ethos matters a lot when learning especially the modern history of Vietnam, and the ancient history you will learn enough of in museums or a few YouTube videos can give an overview of the dynasties and situate you in the general strokes of power and empire.

I enjoy history books that break down the social hierarchies present in an era and the culture surrounding why that is (was my favorite thing to learn in ap world history). But I don’t feel this book really did that it just talked a lot about trade routes and military history. Felt like I was missing the perspective of the common person and was instead getting the perspective of the historian. The discussion of French colonial era felt too factual and not enough discussion to really give an idea of the social situation since I am sure the pace of cultural change was high. I got a strong sense of that when walking through the ancient city in Hue which I enjoyed, it was present in the architecture and the stories of each of the Nguyen emperors.

Cannot comment on the book’s coverage of the American war, as I only got as far as the French war

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most people when they think about Vietnam and its history will immediately think of the American war, probably the familiar images of helicopters and jungle patrols come to mind and "Fortunate Son" plays in the background.
Needless to say but there is a lot more to the history of Vietnam than this one war during the 1960's.
This is an outstanding book covering from the pre-colonial period through the French dominion and beyond.
Probably the best take the author offers is that the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 is one of the most important battles of the 20th century. Because of this battle and its outcome colonialism all over the world was doomed. The "natives" had proven they could defeat a European power in battle on their own terms. From that knowledge flowed all the anti-colonial and anti-imperial wars of the second half of the 20th century.
The author delves into the cultural history of Vietnam and paints a picture of a nation growing up amidst war and struggle.
Well worth reading for anyone who likes deep but readable history.

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three months of house chores and night routines to finish listening to this epic ~24-hour audiobook. I had to rewind huge chunks of time once in a while. It's really hard to visualize the spelling of the names of key individuals when they are pronounced by the narrator like "Ming Man", "Fang Boy Chow", "Tang Duck Tan." What. Didn't expect multiple references to Marguerite Duras. I feel slightly more situated, esp. trying to imagine where my family was during x year while x was going on. Disappointed that a buncha notes I took are trapped in the Audible app with no way to export them.