What do you think?
Rate this book
Ho Chi Minh: A Life
The magisterial and authoritative biography of one of the towering and mysterious figures of the twentieth century.
Ho Chi Minh's epic life helped shape the twentieth century. But never before has he been the subject of a major biography. Now William Duiker has compiled an astonishing work of history that fills this immense void. A New York Times Notable Book and one of the Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2000 - now in paperback!
Ho Chi Minh's epic life helped shape the twentieth century. But never before has he been the subject of a major biography. Now William Duiker has compiled an astonishing work of history that fills this immense void. A New York Times Notable Book and one of the Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2000 - now in paperback!
695 pages, Paperback
First published December 4, 2000
312 people are currently reading
3078 people want to read
About the author
William J. Duiker
75 books23 followersWilliam J. Duiker is a former United States Foreign Service officer and Professor of History at Penn State University. His area of expertise is East Asia; while in the Foreign Service he spent several years in Vietnam, where an injury left him with partial hearing in one ear. Duiker is the author of Ho Chi Minh: A Life, published in 2000, which was the first comprehensive biography of Ho Chi Minh using sources from Vietnam. He recently retired from teaching.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
April 14, 2015
If you're going to pick a communist leader to read a 600-page history about, Ho Chi Minh is your man. I became interested in the Vietnamese patron after we traveled in Southeast Asia on our honeymoon. It's nearly impossible to avoid tributes to him as you travel the country, and I even saw his preserved dead body at the Hanoi mausoleum. This all piqued my interest to learn more about this figure. Especially because the museum devoted to his life assumed a lot of knowledge (and who can blame them -- museums in the states assume you know a lot about our Founding Fathers and national folklore).
This is an extremely well-constructed biography. William Duiker, who served in the U.S. embassy during the Vietnam war, was curious about Ho Chi Minh during his time there and returned to his subject years later. The result is a compelling narrative of his life. Before he became the leader of Vietnam, he was a Confucian scholar, bummed about in France for a time, and eventually became part of the Communist movement in Russia. Through it all, Duiker argues, Minh was more preoccupied with the liberation of Vietnam from French -- and later American -- rule. He believed in communism, but he also saw it as a way to unite his country.
Perhaps the most challenging part about reading this book is that Ho Chi Minh had many aliases throughout his life. Part of this is cultural -- the Vietnamese give their children one name when they are born, and as the child gets older and the parents' hopes for their children's futures have formed, they change the child's name to one more suitable to one's future profession. Of course, this was only the beginning for Minh, who maintained many different names throughout his life, often because he was attempting to travel incognito. It was only later in his life that he rested on the name of Ho Chi Minh.
What's also fascinating is about the degree to which many in the Vietnamese liberation movement hoped to avoid war with the United States. They understood that the popularity of communism in their impoverished country stood to risk war with America, but despite Ho Chi Minh writing a letter to Truman appealing to the United States on the grounds that they, too, once sought liberation from a colonist, the appeals were ignored. Duiker points out that the State Department never forwarded the letter to Truman at all. (Whether that letter was genuine or merely a desperate bid is unknown.) It all begs for an alternate history in which the United States offers assistance to the Vietnamese liberation movement against the French.
What is perhaps most disappointing about this book is that Minh dies in the middle of the war with the United States, so much of my curiosity about how the country developed over the decades to what it is now will have to be fulfilled by another source.
This is an extremely well-constructed biography. William Duiker, who served in the U.S. embassy during the Vietnam war, was curious about Ho Chi Minh during his time there and returned to his subject years later. The result is a compelling narrative of his life. Before he became the leader of Vietnam, he was a Confucian scholar, bummed about in France for a time, and eventually became part of the Communist movement in Russia. Through it all, Duiker argues, Minh was more preoccupied with the liberation of Vietnam from French -- and later American -- rule. He believed in communism, but he also saw it as a way to unite his country.
Perhaps the most challenging part about reading this book is that Ho Chi Minh had many aliases throughout his life. Part of this is cultural -- the Vietnamese give their children one name when they are born, and as the child gets older and the parents' hopes for their children's futures have formed, they change the child's name to one more suitable to one's future profession. Of course, this was only the beginning for Minh, who maintained many different names throughout his life, often because he was attempting to travel incognito. It was only later in his life that he rested on the name of Ho Chi Minh.
What's also fascinating is about the degree to which many in the Vietnamese liberation movement hoped to avoid war with the United States. They understood that the popularity of communism in their impoverished country stood to risk war with America, but despite Ho Chi Minh writing a letter to Truman appealing to the United States on the grounds that they, too, once sought liberation from a colonist, the appeals were ignored. Duiker points out that the State Department never forwarded the letter to Truman at all. (Whether that letter was genuine or merely a desperate bid is unknown.) It all begs for an alternate history in which the United States offers assistance to the Vietnamese liberation movement against the French.
What is perhaps most disappointing about this book is that Minh dies in the middle of the war with the United States, so much of my curiosity about how the country developed over the decades to what it is now will have to be fulfilled by another source.
May 18, 2013
Lần này tôi từ bỏ thói quen đọc sách bằng tiếng gì thì viết bình bằng tiếng ấy, vì tôi hướng tới đối tượng khác chứ không phải chỉ cho tôi.
Đây là một cuốn sách tiểu sử về Hồ Chí Minh rất công phu và chi tiết. Duiker sử dụng rất nhiều nguồn tài liệu và ông dùng tới 4 thứ tiếng để nghiên cứu (Anh, Pháp, Việt, Trung), trong đó có rất nhiều tài liệu có giá trị từ tình báo Pháp, nhưng đặc biệt hơn so với các sách khác, theo tôi thấy, là Duiker sử dụng rất nhiều các văn kiện từ Việt Nam.
Có cái hay mà cũng có cái dở trong cách sử dụng nguồn như vậy. Ví dụ như về thời niên thiếu của HCM, thỉnh thoảng tôi không khỏi bật cười vì một số chi tiết nghe rất "thần thoại," viết ra để hình tượng hóa nhân vật. Dĩ nhiên, Duiker viết có chọn lọc và ông cũng đưa ra nhiều hoài nghi về các tài liệu này, dù chúng được viết bởi các thế hệ sau hay bởi chính HCM.
Tuy nhiên quan trọng hơn, Duiker để tâm nghiên cứu các văn kiện Đảng, các ghi chép chính thức của chính phủ VN. Có lẽ trong khoảng thời gian từ 193x trở đi thì các tài liệu này đặc biệt quan trọng vì lượng thông tin từ tình báo Pháp cũng như từ các thư từ giấy tờ liên lạc với quốc tế giảm hẳn. Đây cũng là lý do khiến cho càng về cuối cuộc đời HCM, những năm 50-60, HCM hiện lên không còn được trực tiếp, như là một cá nhân nữa (không phải lỗi tác giả, tài liệu không tồn tại nhiều, vậy thôi). Vấn đề là tôi thán phục tại sao Duiker có thể nhìn thấu thứ văn chương mà tôi thường không bao giờ hiểu được, do chúng được viết quá hoa lá cành với nội dung ẩn dấu, hoặc cố tình chả có nội dung gì cả. Thế nhưng tác giả đọc hết và phân tích rất rõ ràng các vấn đề chính trị, xung đột nội bộ, các phe phái và tranh chấp, các đường lối. Nhìn chung tôi sợ chính trị và ngoại giao, chúng quá... khó hiểu, và quá là tinh xảo. Phải vô cùng khéo léo và tinh ý.
Đọc về tiểu sử của HCM đúng như đọc về lịch sử chiến tranh Đông Dương và chiến tranh Việt Nam, đặc biệt là chiến tranh Đông Dương. Thú thật đây là lần đầu tiên tôi đọc sách sử về giai đoạn nửa đầu thế kỷ 20 ở VN nên hoàn toàn choáng ngợp sửng sốt trước các vấn đề chính trị trong nước. Duiker tóm tắt và cho cái nhìn toàn cảnh rất rõ ràng, rất dễ hiểu nên tôi rất thích. Tuy nhiên đôi khi tôi cũng hơi kiệt sức vì tác giả liệt kê ra nhiều quá, và có giai đoạn tôi lê lết chờ cho tới lúc sự kiện xảy ra. Nhưng dù sao viết chi tiết như vậy là rất có giá trị.
Có một số mảng nhạy cảm về cuộc đời tư của HCM, tôi cũng không thích đề cập tới vì tôi quan tâm tới vai trò của HCM là một nhà chính trị - ngoại giao hơn. Nhưng vấn đề này lại quan trọng với các nhà cầm quyền, khi mà hình ảnh HCM đóng vai trò tạo nên sự hợp pháp của nhà nước, khiến cho tác phẩm không được dịch và xuất bản ở VN vì Duiker kiên quyết không chịu cắt bỏ phần nào của sách. Thật đáng tiếc, tôi rất muốn nhiều người đọc cuốn sách này hơn, vì thái độ viết của tác giả rất dễ chịu, không cực đoan chút nào, chỉ trích có mà hâm mộ cũng có. (Thực ra có một phiên bản dịch tóm gọn do bác Nguyễn Thành Nam - FPT, làm thì phải nhưng khá lược, tôi có đọc thử, nhưng có lẽ mọi người cũng nên tìm đọc). Dĩ nhiên Duiker viết có chính kiến của riêng mình, đó là một sự ngưỡng mộ. Nhưng đó là sự ngưỡng mộ có chừng mực và được chứng minh khá thuyết phục trong toàn bộ tác phẩm. Và tôi cũng bị thuyết phục.
Đây là một cuốn sách tiểu sử về Hồ Chí Minh rất công phu và chi tiết. Duiker sử dụng rất nhiều nguồn tài liệu và ông dùng tới 4 thứ tiếng để nghiên cứu (Anh, Pháp, Việt, Trung), trong đó có rất nhiều tài liệu có giá trị từ tình báo Pháp, nhưng đặc biệt hơn so với các sách khác, theo tôi thấy, là Duiker sử dụng rất nhiều các văn kiện từ Việt Nam.
Có cái hay mà cũng có cái dở trong cách sử dụng nguồn như vậy. Ví dụ như về thời niên thiếu của HCM, thỉnh thoảng tôi không khỏi bật cười vì một số chi tiết nghe rất "thần thoại," viết ra để hình tượng hóa nhân vật. Dĩ nhiên, Duiker viết có chọn lọc và ông cũng đưa ra nhiều hoài nghi về các tài liệu này, dù chúng được viết bởi các thế hệ sau hay bởi chính HCM.
Tuy nhiên quan trọng hơn, Duiker để tâm nghiên cứu các văn kiện Đảng, các ghi chép chính thức của chính phủ VN. Có lẽ trong khoảng thời gian từ 193x trở đi thì các tài liệu này đặc biệt quan trọng vì lượng thông tin từ tình báo Pháp cũng như từ các thư từ giấy tờ liên lạc với quốc tế giảm hẳn. Đây cũng là lý do khiến cho càng về cuối cuộc đời HCM, những năm 50-60, HCM hiện lên không còn được trực tiếp, như là một cá nhân nữa (không phải lỗi tác giả, tài liệu không tồn tại nhiều, vậy thôi). Vấn đề là tôi thán phục tại sao Duiker có thể nhìn thấu thứ văn chương mà tôi thường không bao giờ hiểu được, do chúng được viết quá hoa lá cành với nội dung ẩn dấu, hoặc cố tình chả có nội dung gì cả. Thế nhưng tác giả đọc hết và phân tích rất rõ ràng các vấn đề chính trị, xung đột nội bộ, các phe phái và tranh chấp, các đường lối. Nhìn chung tôi sợ chính trị và ngoại giao, chúng quá... khó hiểu, và quá là tinh xảo. Phải vô cùng khéo léo và tinh ý.
Đọc về tiểu sử của HCM đúng như đọc về lịch sử chiến tranh Đông Dương và chiến tranh Việt Nam, đặc biệt là chiến tranh Đông Dương. Thú thật đây là lần đầu tiên tôi đọc sách sử về giai đoạn nửa đầu thế kỷ 20 ở VN nên hoàn toàn choáng ngợp sửng sốt trước các vấn đề chính trị trong nước. Duiker tóm tắt và cho cái nhìn toàn cảnh rất rõ ràng, rất dễ hiểu nên tôi rất thích. Tuy nhiên đôi khi tôi cũng hơi kiệt sức vì tác giả liệt kê ra nhiều quá, và có giai đoạn tôi lê lết chờ cho tới lúc sự kiện xảy ra. Nhưng dù sao viết chi tiết như vậy là rất có giá trị.
Có một số mảng nhạy cảm về cuộc đời tư của HCM, tôi cũng không thích đề cập tới vì tôi quan tâm tới vai trò của HCM là một nhà chính trị - ngoại giao hơn. Nhưng vấn đề này lại quan trọng với các nhà cầm quyền, khi mà hình ảnh HCM đóng vai trò tạo nên sự hợp pháp của nhà nước, khiến cho tác phẩm không được dịch và xuất bản ở VN vì Duiker kiên quyết không chịu cắt bỏ phần nào của sách. Thật đáng tiếc, tôi rất muốn nhiều người đọc cuốn sách này hơn, vì thái độ viết của tác giả rất dễ chịu, không cực đoan chút nào, chỉ trích có mà hâm mộ cũng có. (Thực ra có một phiên bản dịch tóm gọn do bác Nguyễn Thành Nam - FPT, làm thì phải nhưng khá lược, tôi có đọc thử, nhưng có lẽ mọi người cũng nên tìm đọc). Dĩ nhiên Duiker viết có chính kiến của riêng mình, đó là một sự ngưỡng mộ. Nhưng đó là sự ngưỡng mộ có chừng mực và được chứng minh khá thuyết phục trong toàn bộ tác phẩm. Và tôi cũng bị thuyết phục.
December 21, 2021
Nguyen Ai Quoc, better known as Ho Chi Minh, played the most important role in the introduction of Communism to Vietnam. A patriot and a revolutionary, he devoted his whole life to two causes: Vietnamese independence and a new Vietnamese society. He led the struggle against the French colonial oppression under the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen Who Loves His Country) and then, as President Ho Chi Minh (Ho the Most Enlightened), he labored to construct a new social order in his country. He embraced Marxism-Leninism, but always sought to work out how to soften the Communist ideology and make it the most useful for the Vietnamese nationalistic movement, which was his priority.
Nguyen Tat Thanh, or "he who will succeed," (he would assume the name Nguyen Ai Quoc later in life) was born on May 19 1890 to an eminent colonial family. His father, Nguyen Sinh Huy, was a pho bang (a doctoral laureate) who had rejected a mandarin post in the court of Hue and was considered to be a troublemaker by French colonial authorities. Ai Quoc's older brother and sister also had trouble with the law because of their anti-colonial activities. The Nghe Tinh region, where the family lived, was known for the patriotism of its population and for its many heroes and talented scholars. In the history of Vietnamese anti-colonial resistance, Nghe Tinh had always featured prominently as the source of most anti-colonial movements, the literati and the Can Vuong among them. In the early 1930s, the region would become a hotbed of Communist activities.
Nguyen Ai Quoc was a patriot from an early age. As he told the Soviet poet Mandelstam in 1923, he learned the French phrases "liberty, equality, and fraternity" when he was thirteen and felt the need to see for himself "what was hidden behind those phrases." By the age of fifteen, he was already working as a liaison agent for anti-colonial scholars. In 1911, he finally managed to leave for France by landing a job as a cabin boy on the S.S Latouche-Treville. Before he departed, he allegedly told a close friend that he wanted to go abroad and see France and other countries, so that he could help Vietnam when he came back. While his aspirations were not uncommon among the Vietnamese youth of that time, who travelled to Japan, France, and China extensively to find out how to help their country, Ai Quoc's journey was exceptional, for it was during this journey that he discovered Marxism-Leninism and became determined to use this ideology to liberate Vietnam.
In Paris, he became disillusioned with reformism. Having found out that while the French at home were cruel, the French in France were good people, he believed the French wartime promises of post-WWI political liberation of Indochina. However, when he failed to obtain a hearing at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, he realized that independence had to be achieved through stubborn struggle, not entreaties. Before the conference, he had envisioned political freedom within the colonial system; afterwards, he came to the conclusion that no promises of the colonialists were to be trusted, no compromises could be made between the oppressors and the oppressed, de-colonization would be just as violent as colonization had been, and the Vietnamese could positively rely only on their own forces.
At that time, Nguyen Ai Quoc also became adherent of the Third International, or Comintern, which had been recently founded by Lenin. The Comintern had emerged after the failure of social democracy in the international working-class movement, but Ai Quoc joined the Third International not because he understood much about the difference between social democracy and communism, but because he knew that the Comintern was paying special attention to the colonial problem. From that moment on, Ai Quoc's notion of revolution turned into a mix of different political ideas. He embraced both ardent nationalism and internationalism, which to him meant a collaboration between the proletariat of Europe and the nationalists of the colonies. (According to an anecdote whose authenticity cannot be confirmed, during a meeting Stalin showed Ho Chi Minh two chairs, telling him that one of them represented nationalism and the other internationalism, and asked on which one Ho preferred to sit. Ho Chi Minh replied that he'd like to sit on both.) First and foremost, though, Ai Quoc strived to adapt the communist ideology to local conditions. He understood that to succeed the movement would have to avoid terms like Bolshevism and Communism entirely because in old, colonized Indochina no one understood what a class struggle, a workers' organization, and a proletarian movement were, and such complex terms would only drive the people away from the communists. On the other hand, calling the attention of the villagers to the crimes the French authorities committed against them on a daily basis and to concrete ways in which the overthrow of the colonial government would alleviate the wretched conditions in the countryside would effectively motivate them to embrace the revolutionary cause.
In 1925, Nguyen Ai Quoc single-handedly created the Vietnamese Communist movement, and five years later, when it was torn apart by internal conflicts, he helped restore unity and founded the first unified Communist party. For almost ten years, from the time of his arrest on June 5 1931 by the Hong Kong police until May 1941, his name wasn't mentioned in connection with the revolutionary movement in Vietnam, and only a handful of Party insiders knew his whereabouts, but in 1941, when the ICP (Indochinese Communist Party) was almost effaced by severe colonial repression, it was again Nguyen Ai Quoc with his remarkable talent for leadership who created a new movement out of the remains of the old and successfully seized power in the August 1945 Revolution. From then on he worked diligently to combine Marxism-Leninism with nationalism, making efforts to soften the hard side of communism as to adapt it to the needs of the ordinary Vietnamese. William J. Duiker refutes the theory that Ho's humanity was a mere pose, and instead supposes that the President had felt confident "he could avoid the pitfalls of Stalinism and synthesize the positive aspects of classical Marxism and humanist values in a future socialist Vietnam." However, when it became clear that Vietnamese socialism shared many flaws with its Soviet counterpart, Ho Chi Minh lacked the vision and the courage to criticize it. In 1969 death deprived him of the happiness to see his country free from foreign domination. His ideals of social and economic equality lived on, though, and spoke to oppressed peoples all over the world.
William J. Duiker has written an outstanding book, which I won't call exactly a biography. Because Ho Chi Minh had been exceptionally private about all details of his revolutionary career, even with his closest colleagues and friends, it is difficult to trace his life and to distinguish myth from reality. Therefore, Duiker has chosen a different approach: instead of documenting Ho's actions throughout the years, he focuses on analysing the man's ideology and on the way this ideology shaped his approach to the anti-colonial struggle of Vietnam. The book is most definitely worth a read. Duiker writes compellingly and draws upon a truly impressive number of sources.
Nguyen Tat Thanh, or "he who will succeed," (he would assume the name Nguyen Ai Quoc later in life) was born on May 19 1890 to an eminent colonial family. His father, Nguyen Sinh Huy, was a pho bang (a doctoral laureate) who had rejected a mandarin post in the court of Hue and was considered to be a troublemaker by French colonial authorities. Ai Quoc's older brother and sister also had trouble with the law because of their anti-colonial activities. The Nghe Tinh region, where the family lived, was known for the patriotism of its population and for its many heroes and talented scholars. In the history of Vietnamese anti-colonial resistance, Nghe Tinh had always featured prominently as the source of most anti-colonial movements, the literati and the Can Vuong among them. In the early 1930s, the region would become a hotbed of Communist activities.
Nguyen Ai Quoc was a patriot from an early age. As he told the Soviet poet Mandelstam in 1923, he learned the French phrases "liberty, equality, and fraternity" when he was thirteen and felt the need to see for himself "what was hidden behind those phrases." By the age of fifteen, he was already working as a liaison agent for anti-colonial scholars. In 1911, he finally managed to leave for France by landing a job as a cabin boy on the S.S Latouche-Treville. Before he departed, he allegedly told a close friend that he wanted to go abroad and see France and other countries, so that he could help Vietnam when he came back. While his aspirations were not uncommon among the Vietnamese youth of that time, who travelled to Japan, France, and China extensively to find out how to help their country, Ai Quoc's journey was exceptional, for it was during this journey that he discovered Marxism-Leninism and became determined to use this ideology to liberate Vietnam.
In Paris, he became disillusioned with reformism. Having found out that while the French at home were cruel, the French in France were good people, he believed the French wartime promises of post-WWI political liberation of Indochina. However, when he failed to obtain a hearing at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, he realized that independence had to be achieved through stubborn struggle, not entreaties. Before the conference, he had envisioned political freedom within the colonial system; afterwards, he came to the conclusion that no promises of the colonialists were to be trusted, no compromises could be made between the oppressors and the oppressed, de-colonization would be just as violent as colonization had been, and the Vietnamese could positively rely only on their own forces.
At that time, Nguyen Ai Quoc also became adherent of the Third International, or Comintern, which had been recently founded by Lenin. The Comintern had emerged after the failure of social democracy in the international working-class movement, but Ai Quoc joined the Third International not because he understood much about the difference between social democracy and communism, but because he knew that the Comintern was paying special attention to the colonial problem. From that moment on, Ai Quoc's notion of revolution turned into a mix of different political ideas. He embraced both ardent nationalism and internationalism, which to him meant a collaboration between the proletariat of Europe and the nationalists of the colonies. (According to an anecdote whose authenticity cannot be confirmed, during a meeting Stalin showed Ho Chi Minh two chairs, telling him that one of them represented nationalism and the other internationalism, and asked on which one Ho preferred to sit. Ho Chi Minh replied that he'd like to sit on both.) First and foremost, though, Ai Quoc strived to adapt the communist ideology to local conditions. He understood that to succeed the movement would have to avoid terms like Bolshevism and Communism entirely because in old, colonized Indochina no one understood what a class struggle, a workers' organization, and a proletarian movement were, and such complex terms would only drive the people away from the communists. On the other hand, calling the attention of the villagers to the crimes the French authorities committed against them on a daily basis and to concrete ways in which the overthrow of the colonial government would alleviate the wretched conditions in the countryside would effectively motivate them to embrace the revolutionary cause.
In 1925, Nguyen Ai Quoc single-handedly created the Vietnamese Communist movement, and five years later, when it was torn apart by internal conflicts, he helped restore unity and founded the first unified Communist party. For almost ten years, from the time of his arrest on June 5 1931 by the Hong Kong police until May 1941, his name wasn't mentioned in connection with the revolutionary movement in Vietnam, and only a handful of Party insiders knew his whereabouts, but in 1941, when the ICP (Indochinese Communist Party) was almost effaced by severe colonial repression, it was again Nguyen Ai Quoc with his remarkable talent for leadership who created a new movement out of the remains of the old and successfully seized power in the August 1945 Revolution. From then on he worked diligently to combine Marxism-Leninism with nationalism, making efforts to soften the hard side of communism as to adapt it to the needs of the ordinary Vietnamese. William J. Duiker refutes the theory that Ho's humanity was a mere pose, and instead supposes that the President had felt confident "he could avoid the pitfalls of Stalinism and synthesize the positive aspects of classical Marxism and humanist values in a future socialist Vietnam." However, when it became clear that Vietnamese socialism shared many flaws with its Soviet counterpart, Ho Chi Minh lacked the vision and the courage to criticize it. In 1969 death deprived him of the happiness to see his country free from foreign domination. His ideals of social and economic equality lived on, though, and spoke to oppressed peoples all over the world.
William J. Duiker has written an outstanding book, which I won't call exactly a biography. Because Ho Chi Minh had been exceptionally private about all details of his revolutionary career, even with his closest colleagues and friends, it is difficult to trace his life and to distinguish myth from reality. Therefore, Duiker has chosen a different approach: instead of documenting Ho's actions throughout the years, he focuses on analysing the man's ideology and on the way this ideology shaped his approach to the anti-colonial struggle of Vietnam. The book is most definitely worth a read. Duiker writes compellingly and draws upon a truly impressive number of sources.
May 3, 2013
Nghiên cứu toàn diện về cuộc đời của Hồ Chí Minh trong mối liên hệ chặt chẽ với lịch sử Viêt Nam thế kỷ 20. Trên cơ sở nghiên cứu tư liệu về Hồ Chí Minh lưu trữ ở Việt Nam, Liên Xô, Pháp, Anh, Trung Quốc .v.v. và phỏng vấn hàng trăm nhân vật đã từng tiếp xúc hoặc làm việc với Hồ Chí Minh, tác giả cố gắng đưa ra những đánh giá khách quan về Hồ Chí Minh (cho dù ông không thể che giấu được sự ngưỡng mộ dành cho đối tượng nghiên cứu của ông). Lịch sử và sự thật vốn luôn có khoảng cách. Một sự kiện diễn ra mới hôm qua chưa chắc gì đã được tường thuật chính xác như nó đã thật sự diễn ra trên báo ngày hôm nay, huống hồ cuộc đời 79 năm của Hồ Chí Minh với biết bao nhiêu sự kiện. Thế cho nên tôi nghĩ đọc sách sử hoặc sách nghiên cứu lịch sử bao giờ cũng phải có phần nghi ngờ. Cái phần nghi ngờ đó tăng lên hay giảm xuống ở mức độ nào tùy thuộc vào tác giả làm cho người đọc tin rằng tác giả đã nghiêm túc đến đâu trong nghiên cứu. Về việc này ông Duiker làm cho tôi tin hơn rất nhiều so với các sử gia ở cả hai phía bởi vì ông không có sẵn thành kiến trong đầu. Cho dù có nhiều tranh cãi về nhân vật lịch sử Hồ Chí Minh, điều không thể tranh cãi là Hồ Chí Minh là một nhà yêu nước lớn, có một uy tín cá nhân lớn mà không nhân vật chính trị nào của Việt Nam trong thế kỷ 20 có được.
October 22, 2013
A superb biography of a mythic and often misunderstood figure. Ho has always been a difficult figure to understand; he habitually disguised himself and often reinvented his personal history. The book is thoroughly researched and strips away the aura of myth around Ho Chi Minh.
Duiker shows how Ho the long-time Comintern agent and often willing tool of Mao and Stalin often behaved in ways that cast doubt on his belief in communism, versus his ardent nationalism. Ho was pretty much a pragmatist whose aims were always a unified, independent Vietnam; even his communist beliefs were adopted merely because Ho thought they could make such a goal possible.
Toward this end, Ho built up a following from scratch under the loose and often less than interested supervision of the Comintern. The Comintern frequently intervened in the affairs of national parties. Sometimes it was only the latest telegram from Moscow that changed Party policies. In Vietnam, isolated and rather marginal to the interests of the superpowers (at first), Ho was resistant to to Soviet policies, to the extent that the Soviets even gave a crap about Vietnam in the first place. The Chinese had somewhat more influence, although Ho Chi Minh did not look to them as much as he did to the Soviets. This often proved unproductive as the Soviets saw Vietnam as marginal to their interests.
Sometimes the book gets unnecessarily detailed; for example there’s more pages devoted to Ho’s choice of clothing than on the climactic battle of Dien Bien Phu. The Vietcong’s severe defeat during the Tet offensive is also somewhat minimized. But, in all, quite an interesting book.
Duiker shows how Ho the long-time Comintern agent and often willing tool of Mao and Stalin often behaved in ways that cast doubt on his belief in communism, versus his ardent nationalism. Ho was pretty much a pragmatist whose aims were always a unified, independent Vietnam; even his communist beliefs were adopted merely because Ho thought they could make such a goal possible.
Toward this end, Ho built up a following from scratch under the loose and often less than interested supervision of the Comintern. The Comintern frequently intervened in the affairs of national parties. Sometimes it was only the latest telegram from Moscow that changed Party policies. In Vietnam, isolated and rather marginal to the interests of the superpowers (at first), Ho was resistant to to Soviet policies, to the extent that the Soviets even gave a crap about Vietnam in the first place. The Chinese had somewhat more influence, although Ho Chi Minh did not look to them as much as he did to the Soviets. This often proved unproductive as the Soviets saw Vietnam as marginal to their interests.
Sometimes the book gets unnecessarily detailed; for example there’s more pages devoted to Ho’s choice of clothing than on the climactic battle of Dien Bien Phu. The Vietcong’s severe defeat during the Tet offensive is also somewhat minimized. But, in all, quite an interesting book.
June 21, 2021
This was an eye opener for me, a balanced view of the life of a Vietnamese - putting the halo of a saint aside. The book paints a vivid picture from the day Nguyen Tat Thanh was born until the last days of Uncle Ho, with all the events that made him who he was in between. For me, this was an epic story of a revolutionary man relentlessly pursuing his Vision for independence of Vietnam.
While school's history textbooks presented a black and white picture, this book offers a much more nuanced and realistic lens. The book was full of successes as well as mistakes and regrets. It did a great job on putting HCM's decisions and thoughts in the context of world events, especially on the geopolitics among world's great powers at the time: US, China, Russia and France. And you could even see the evolution in his thoughts and beliefs about the world unfolding through the book.
You might be interested in this book if you want to understand more about the most influential figure in Vietnam modern history - as a real person with both ingenuity and flaws. Personally I admire HCM even much more after reading this book, appreciating all the decisions he took in the face of impossible challenges, while still keeping his humanity, poise and humour. And his leadership was visionary, diplomatic, pragmatism and inclusivity - the exact opposite of blinded idealism or tyranny.
I'd like to end with my favorite quote from the book: "The issue is not whether he was a nationalist or a Communist - in his own way, he was both...Ho Chi Minh was a beliver in the art of the possible, of adjusting his ideals to the conditions of the moment."
While school's history textbooks presented a black and white picture, this book offers a much more nuanced and realistic lens. The book was full of successes as well as mistakes and regrets. It did a great job on putting HCM's decisions and thoughts in the context of world events, especially on the geopolitics among world's great powers at the time: US, China, Russia and France. And you could even see the evolution in his thoughts and beliefs about the world unfolding through the book.
You might be interested in this book if you want to understand more about the most influential figure in Vietnam modern history - as a real person with both ingenuity and flaws. Personally I admire HCM even much more after reading this book, appreciating all the decisions he took in the face of impossible challenges, while still keeping his humanity, poise and humour. And his leadership was visionary, diplomatic, pragmatism and inclusivity - the exact opposite of blinded idealism or tyranny.
I'd like to end with my favorite quote from the book: "The issue is not whether he was a nationalist or a Communist - in his own way, he was both...Ho Chi Minh was a beliver in the art of the possible, of adjusting his ideals to the conditions of the moment."
October 16, 2018
Needless to say, at school we learn plenty about Ho Chi Minh, and yet I learned nothing. The official history text simplistically portraits him as a patriotic man who sacrificed his life to bring about national independence and pave to way for Vietnam to a become a socialist utopia. I always have deep respect for him, but dislike the fact that every year his image is overused in government campaigns to educate the mass about Ho Chi Minh thought and justify the tight power grip of the Communist Party.
But Ho Chi Minh is much more than that. To quote one of my favorite sentences in the book, "Ho Chi Minh's image was part Lenin and part Gandhi, with perhaps a dash of Confucius." His ideology is a mix of nationalism and socialism. An advocate of peaceful resolution, and yet he opted for militant tactics when needed. A man of simple and earthly manner, but he so artfully balanced against different superpowers' interests in Vietnam and the held together fractious elements within his party.
This book also touches on many of my what-if scenarios. While it's hard to know the counterfactual, I believe that the decisions he made during his lifetime were the optimal given the circumstances. I can always wish that certain things could have been different, but perhaps instead of wishful thinking, it's better to learn from the past and focus on the future.
But Ho Chi Minh is much more than that. To quote one of my favorite sentences in the book, "Ho Chi Minh's image was part Lenin and part Gandhi, with perhaps a dash of Confucius." His ideology is a mix of nationalism and socialism. An advocate of peaceful resolution, and yet he opted for militant tactics when needed. A man of simple and earthly manner, but he so artfully balanced against different superpowers' interests in Vietnam and the held together fractious elements within his party.
This book also touches on many of my what-if scenarios. While it's hard to know the counterfactual, I believe that the decisions he made during his lifetime were the optimal given the circumstances. I can always wish that certain things could have been different, but perhaps instead of wishful thinking, it's better to learn from the past and focus on the future.
August 6, 2011
If you want to understand the roots of the Vietnam War and see it through the eyes of the other side -- Read this!
February 13, 2018
vừa đọc vừa xem lại 10 tập The Vietnam War lần 2
May 2, 2021
A good book about the very intelligent Ho Chi Minh and his revolution against the French and how he came to be. This book opens the door into his world and removes the mystery so many of us have of him. A must read for anyone interested in Pre-Colonial Indochina and the Vietnamese uprising against the French regime.
May 15, 2020
A decent and balanced work on one of the most important figures in Asian history in the twentieth century. The Vietnamese people inflicted on the arrogant USA their worst defeat yet.
November 23, 2022
A good historical book, lots of information packed within its pages, about the life of a great man who dream was the freedom of the country he loved. The book is well written, the storyline flows easily through the books which allows the reader to follow the story without getting lost. I really enjoyed it
August 29, 2020
Đọc xong cuốn này thì thấy đáng ra mình phải đọc từ sớm hơn mới phải. Tác dụng cung cấp thông tin còn hơn 12 năm đọc sách giáo khoa sử mà chẳng lưu lại được chữ nào trong đầu. Nói giải thiêng thì hơi quá nhưng cuốn này thực sự giúp mình có một cái nhìn toàn diện hơn về Hồ Chí Minh, không còn vẻ "thần thánh" như hình tượng vẫn được đắp nặn mà ông cũng là một con người bình thường vẫn có khuyết điểm, tính cá nhân và mắc sai lầm nhiều khi. Nhưng phải công nhận là Hồ Chí Minh thực sự đã sống một cuộc đời phi thường.
December 17, 2018
This is likely the best biography of Ho Chi Minh available in English (not that there is exactly a lot of competition). If you're interested in learning more about the life of one of the pivotal figures of the 20th century, you might as well start here. The author has done an admirable job of cobbling together the (so far) definitive life story of Ho Chi Minh from the wide variety of sources (e.g. declassified French security files, declassified USSR files, and so on) to try to piece together the story.
That said, the book has several substantial weaknesses: the biggest is that it falls too often into the trap of reciting names, dates, and places and fails to convey the more important underlying story. There are 3 key areas where this happens.
At the first, we know that Nguyen Ai Quoc was a legendary revolutionary. But how exactly this came to pass is, after the reading the book, still not entirely clear. He wrote a lot of things, that is true. And he was involved with Comintern. But how exactly did writing things transmute to him being a legendarily famous revolutionary among Vietnamese in Vietnam? He wrote a lot in his days in France, it is true, but he didn't really *do* much, that I can tell.
Secondly, after 7 or 8 years of "doing nothing" in virtual exile in the Soviet Union he eventually makes his way back to China where, without any apparent drama, he becomes the leader of the revolutionaries who have been working for years. Even Duiker has a small passage trying to make sense of this surprising turn. In the end all he can really muster is something along the lines of "his reputation as a long-time revolutionary must have done it". But again, remember these are people who have been fighting, dying, and going to prison while Nguyen Ai Quoc was relaxing in (relatively) luxury writing newspaper articles in China. It feels like we're missing a key part of the story.
Finally, we are told repeatedly that Ho Chi Minh was "charismatic" but we are never really drawn a picture of how or why. Charismatic is one of the vague words that suggests something but doesn't really describe it. It is a conclusion you draw ("he is charismatic") rather than a description. We're lacking the description and instead given the conclusion. I don't doubt that he was charismatic but I still don't have any real idea how or what that meant.
Finally, especially after 1954, the book becomes less a biography of Ho Chi Minh and more a history of Vietnam. There are very long sections of Le Duan doing this or Vo Nguyen Giap doing that followed by "Ho Chi Minh's opinions on these events are unknown".
It is somewhat understandable -- sources become even more fragmentary and of dubious quality after 1945. Ho Chi Minh's life doesn't follow a nice, movie-arc trajectory. He died before his country was finally unified. He was replaced in large part by Le Duan. He lived out the last decade of his life as a beloved figurehead rather than the prime mover.
In the end, though, what comes through most in this book is Ho Chi Minh's dedication to his country. He spent, what?, 60 years fighting for independence for his country? And he seemed to do it with an almost tireless amount of energy and patience.
That said, the book has several substantial weaknesses: the biggest is that it falls too often into the trap of reciting names, dates, and places and fails to convey the more important underlying story. There are 3 key areas where this happens.
At the first, we know that Nguyen Ai Quoc was a legendary revolutionary. But how exactly this came to pass is, after the reading the book, still not entirely clear. He wrote a lot of things, that is true. And he was involved with Comintern. But how exactly did writing things transmute to him being a legendarily famous revolutionary among Vietnamese in Vietnam? He wrote a lot in his days in France, it is true, but he didn't really *do* much, that I can tell.
Secondly, after 7 or 8 years of "doing nothing" in virtual exile in the Soviet Union he eventually makes his way back to China where, without any apparent drama, he becomes the leader of the revolutionaries who have been working for years. Even Duiker has a small passage trying to make sense of this surprising turn. In the end all he can really muster is something along the lines of "his reputation as a long-time revolutionary must have done it". But again, remember these are people who have been fighting, dying, and going to prison while Nguyen Ai Quoc was relaxing in (relatively) luxury writing newspaper articles in China. It feels like we're missing a key part of the story.
Finally, we are told repeatedly that Ho Chi Minh was "charismatic" but we are never really drawn a picture of how or why. Charismatic is one of the vague words that suggests something but doesn't really describe it. It is a conclusion you draw ("he is charismatic") rather than a description. We're lacking the description and instead given the conclusion. I don't doubt that he was charismatic but I still don't have any real idea how or what that meant.
Finally, especially after 1954, the book becomes less a biography of Ho Chi Minh and more a history of Vietnam. There are very long sections of Le Duan doing this or Vo Nguyen Giap doing that followed by "Ho Chi Minh's opinions on these events are unknown".
It is somewhat understandable -- sources become even more fragmentary and of dubious quality after 1945. Ho Chi Minh's life doesn't follow a nice, movie-arc trajectory. He died before his country was finally unified. He was replaced in large part by Le Duan. He lived out the last decade of his life as a beloved figurehead rather than the prime mover.
In the end, though, what comes through most in this book is Ho Chi Minh's dedication to his country. He spent, what?, 60 years fighting for independence for his country? And he seemed to do it with an almost tireless amount of energy and patience.
July 13, 2020
A well-researched about Ho Chi Minh life and his contribution. More balanced than other books
September 26, 2021
Ho Chi Minh: A Life is a biography of Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician. William J. Duiker, a former United States Foreign Service officer wrote this biography.
Hồ Chí Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician. He served as Prime Minister of North Vietnam from 1945 to 1955 and President from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he served as Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam.
Duiker succeeds extremely well in illuminating the life and times of Ho Chi Minh – North Vietnam's leader, a man Duiker calls a "master motivator and strategist" and "one of the most influential political figures of the twentieth century."
Covering both the personal and political life of the revolutionary leader, Duiker fascinatingly traces Ho's early travels to New York, Boston, and Paris, as well as his many years in exile in France, China, Thailand and in the rugged mountains of northern Vietnam. Duiker's detailed recounting of the momentous and extremely complicated events that took place in 1945 following the Japanese surrender, when Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary party seized power in northern Vietnam and his account of the not-always-harmonious relations between Ho and the Communist leaders of China and the Soviet Union probes a subject that has long been overlooked.
Ho Chi Minh: A Life is written and researched extremely well – it is far from perfect, but it comes rather close. Duiker, who served in the U.S. embassy during the Vietnam War, was curious about Ho Chi Minh during his time there and the result is a compelling narrative of his life. Before he became the leader of Vietnam, he was a Confucian scholar, vagabond about in France for a time, and eventually became part of the Communist movement in Russia. Through it all, Duiker argues, Minh was more preoccupied with the liberation of Vietnam from French and later American rule. He believed in communism, but he also saw it as a way to unite his country.
All in all, Ho Chi Minh: A Life is a wonderful and perhaps definitive biography of the Vietnamese activist – Ho Chi Minh.
Hồ Chí Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician. He served as Prime Minister of North Vietnam from 1945 to 1955 and President from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he served as Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam.
Duiker succeeds extremely well in illuminating the life and times of Ho Chi Minh – North Vietnam's leader, a man Duiker calls a "master motivator and strategist" and "one of the most influential political figures of the twentieth century."
Covering both the personal and political life of the revolutionary leader, Duiker fascinatingly traces Ho's early travels to New York, Boston, and Paris, as well as his many years in exile in France, China, Thailand and in the rugged mountains of northern Vietnam. Duiker's detailed recounting of the momentous and extremely complicated events that took place in 1945 following the Japanese surrender, when Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary party seized power in northern Vietnam and his account of the not-always-harmonious relations between Ho and the Communist leaders of China and the Soviet Union probes a subject that has long been overlooked.
Ho Chi Minh: A Life is written and researched extremely well – it is far from perfect, but it comes rather close. Duiker, who served in the U.S. embassy during the Vietnam War, was curious about Ho Chi Minh during his time there and the result is a compelling narrative of his life. Before he became the leader of Vietnam, he was a Confucian scholar, vagabond about in France for a time, and eventually became part of the Communist movement in Russia. Through it all, Duiker argues, Minh was more preoccupied with the liberation of Vietnam from French and later American rule. He believed in communism, but he also saw it as a way to unite his country.
All in all, Ho Chi Minh: A Life is a wonderful and perhaps definitive biography of the Vietnamese activist – Ho Chi Minh.
September 25, 2013
I’ve always been fascinated by Ho Chi Minh, one of history’s most mysterious yet prominent figures. I’ve read what little there is on him over the years, and then finally came across this book, William Duiker’s Ho Chi Minh: A Life. What a thoroughly researched and detailed book! Duiker does a truly admirable job of piecing together information from archives and sources from all over the world to give us the best possible picture of Ho, and he does it in a reasonably objective way.
Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19th, 1890 with the given name, Nguyen Sinh Cung, to a Confucian scholar in the Nghe An province of Annam, part of French Indochina, a colonial territory. Duiker writes a great deal about the history of Vietnam, how it had been conquered and occupied for centuries (much of it by the Chinese) and how the 20th Century Indochinese resented their French occupiers for many legitimate, assorted reasons. As young Cung was about to enter adolescence, his father gave him a new name – something customarily done then – Nguyen Tat Thanh, meaning “he who will succeed.” Thanh learned Chinese and Confucian history. He also started being influenced by displaced nationalists who wanted to see an independent Vietnam. However, Thanh felt it important to first understand their oppressors, so he began studying French and the French culture at a Franco-Vietnamese preparatory school in Vinh. Thanh’s attitudes about the French were also no doubt influenced by his father, who despised the imperial government the French allowed to rule over the three sections of Indochina.
In 1907, Thanh enrolled in National Academy, the highest level Franco-Vietnamese school in Hue, the imperial capital. He learned French, Vietnamese, and Chinese, but he was considered somewhat of a country bumpkin by his peers. Still, Thanh’s patriotic instincts were stoked while at this school. Indeed, his first direct involvement in political action came during this period as a wave of unrest swept the countryside and there were many demonstrations. On May 9th, he was beaten and fired upon by French troops during a demonstration. Thanh was dismissed from school and left Annam for Cochin China (South Vietnam) where he taught school for a period before deciding to go to France to study, leaving on a liner where he worked for passage under the name, “Ba.”
In France, Thanh took up odd jobs and started attending labor union meetings and meetings of socialists and Marxists, who supported more freedoms for colonial territories. He started writing articles under pseudonyms and publishing them in numerous media. In 1918, Thanh drafted an eight point petition to the government demanding Annamite freedom. He signed his document, Nguyen Ai Quoc, or “Nguyen the Patriot,” a name he would carry forward with him for decades to come. Eventually, the French police and secret police started taking notice, and he went to New York and London to escape their notice for awhile, before returning to France. He became rather prolific there and the voice for the Vietnamese people, as well as others. In 1924, he left for Moscow, where Lenin had radicalized Russia, a newly Communist country with great goals of expanding communism to the third world, including Indochina.
One thing I’ve always been curious about regarding Ho is whether he was a patriot fighting for national independence or a communist fighting to spread communism. The author of this book addresses this issue at several points throughout the book. He writes, “There are valid reasons for the argument that Nguyen Ai Quoc was above all a patriot. In 1960 he himself conceded in [a] short article … that it was the desire for Vietnamese independence that had drawn him to Marxism in the first place.” Yet, “there is also persuasive evidence that the young Nguyen Ai Quoc viewed Marxism-Leninism as more than just a tool to drive out the French…. Quoc believed that the struggle against the forces of imperialism throughout Asia would culminate in a global revolution.” And there you go. He was both.
Whatever the case, Quoc stayed in Moscow a very long time, studying at the Stalin School and writing things like The Revolutionary Path, his first major effort to introduce Marxist-Leninist doctrine to his countrymen. He moved from Moscow to China next, where he established himself with a network of like-minded nationalist/communists who sought Vietnam’s independence. From there, he oversaw the battle for Vietnam’s independence on behalf of both Russia and China, playing both countries against each other brilliantly – something he’d do for the rest of his life.
Rumor had it he was married to a Chinese woman and had a daughter, but he had to leave them and flee to avoid arrest by the ever aggressive French, returning to Moscow. There he set up a system for patriotic countrymen to come study Marxist philosophies and to go home to spread their knowledge. In 1941, Quoc traveled back through China under the assumed name of Ho Chi Minh, the name that would stick with him for the rest of his life. (It meant “He Who Enlightens.”) During the World War Two years of Japanese occupation in Vietnam, Ho traveled back to Vietnam for the first time in decades, to head the Vietminh Front, along with future general, Vo Nguyen Giap and others. With China’s help, they carved out for themselves some territory in northern Vietnam and solicited help from both Russia and the US, of all countries.
After the war was over, Ho declared Vietnam an independent country, much to the delight of his countrymen who viewed him as a hero. The French had other plans, and with US backing, returned to re-colonize Indochina. Ho and the Vietminh went into hiding and started conducting guerrilla warfare, eventually demoralizing the French and gaining power, ultimately resulting in the military destruction of the French at Dien Bien Phu, and France’s essential surrender, resulting in a split Vietnam, where the northern part would be governed by Ho, and the southern by a corrupt president propped up by the US, one who would later be assassinated with America’s permission and knowledge.
One thing you have to understand is this – the Vietnamese wanted a free and independent unified Vietnam, even most of the southerners. Thus, the Viet Cong, who started making their appearance in 1961 with the north’s backing. Ho continued to seek a political solution, but Lyndon Johnson would have none of it and with the suspicious Gulf of Tonkin incident, he brought the US right into the war. Something that will forever be remembered as one of the most stupid things done by a US president. It was an unwinnable war. Ho said that the Vietnamese may lose 10 soldiers for every one American soldier, but that Vietnam would outlast America, and he was right.
Ho’s influence started to wane as he aged, on into the 1960s, but even as a figurehead, he still played a large role. Power had shifted to other Vietnamese leaders, such as Le Duan, but until Ho’s death on September 2nd, 1969, he was viewed as the legitimate leader of his people and a fighter for the oppressed the world over.
The book, aside from an epilogue, ends with Ho’s death and briefly describes the end of the war, so you won’t get much information about how the war ended or why, but this book goes a long way to demystifying a mythical man of immense power and stature, and for that, the author should be applauded. Perhaps I should end this review of this strongly recommended book by citing the final paragraph in the book, a book written by a man who worked at the US Embassy in Saigon back during the war:
“Ho Chi Minh, then, was … an ‘event-making man,’ a ‘child of crisis’ who combined in his own person two of the central forces in the history of modern Vietnam: the desire for national independence and the quest for social and economic justice. Because these forces transcended the borders of his own country, Ho was able to project his message to colonial peoples all over the world and speak to their demand for dignity and freedom from imperialist oppression. Whatever the final judgment on his legacy to this own people, he has taken his place in the pantheon of revolutionary heroes who have struggled mightily to give the pariahs of the world their true voice.”
Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19th, 1890 with the given name, Nguyen Sinh Cung, to a Confucian scholar in the Nghe An province of Annam, part of French Indochina, a colonial territory. Duiker writes a great deal about the history of Vietnam, how it had been conquered and occupied for centuries (much of it by the Chinese) and how the 20th Century Indochinese resented their French occupiers for many legitimate, assorted reasons. As young Cung was about to enter adolescence, his father gave him a new name – something customarily done then – Nguyen Tat Thanh, meaning “he who will succeed.” Thanh learned Chinese and Confucian history. He also started being influenced by displaced nationalists who wanted to see an independent Vietnam. However, Thanh felt it important to first understand their oppressors, so he began studying French and the French culture at a Franco-Vietnamese preparatory school in Vinh. Thanh’s attitudes about the French were also no doubt influenced by his father, who despised the imperial government the French allowed to rule over the three sections of Indochina.
In 1907, Thanh enrolled in National Academy, the highest level Franco-Vietnamese school in Hue, the imperial capital. He learned French, Vietnamese, and Chinese, but he was considered somewhat of a country bumpkin by his peers. Still, Thanh’s patriotic instincts were stoked while at this school. Indeed, his first direct involvement in political action came during this period as a wave of unrest swept the countryside and there were many demonstrations. On May 9th, he was beaten and fired upon by French troops during a demonstration. Thanh was dismissed from school and left Annam for Cochin China (South Vietnam) where he taught school for a period before deciding to go to France to study, leaving on a liner where he worked for passage under the name, “Ba.”
In France, Thanh took up odd jobs and started attending labor union meetings and meetings of socialists and Marxists, who supported more freedoms for colonial territories. He started writing articles under pseudonyms and publishing them in numerous media. In 1918, Thanh drafted an eight point petition to the government demanding Annamite freedom. He signed his document, Nguyen Ai Quoc, or “Nguyen the Patriot,” a name he would carry forward with him for decades to come. Eventually, the French police and secret police started taking notice, and he went to New York and London to escape their notice for awhile, before returning to France. He became rather prolific there and the voice for the Vietnamese people, as well as others. In 1924, he left for Moscow, where Lenin had radicalized Russia, a newly Communist country with great goals of expanding communism to the third world, including Indochina.
One thing I’ve always been curious about regarding Ho is whether he was a patriot fighting for national independence or a communist fighting to spread communism. The author of this book addresses this issue at several points throughout the book. He writes, “There are valid reasons for the argument that Nguyen Ai Quoc was above all a patriot. In 1960 he himself conceded in [a] short article … that it was the desire for Vietnamese independence that had drawn him to Marxism in the first place.” Yet, “there is also persuasive evidence that the young Nguyen Ai Quoc viewed Marxism-Leninism as more than just a tool to drive out the French…. Quoc believed that the struggle against the forces of imperialism throughout Asia would culminate in a global revolution.” And there you go. He was both.
Whatever the case, Quoc stayed in Moscow a very long time, studying at the Stalin School and writing things like The Revolutionary Path, his first major effort to introduce Marxist-Leninist doctrine to his countrymen. He moved from Moscow to China next, where he established himself with a network of like-minded nationalist/communists who sought Vietnam’s independence. From there, he oversaw the battle for Vietnam’s independence on behalf of both Russia and China, playing both countries against each other brilliantly – something he’d do for the rest of his life.
Rumor had it he was married to a Chinese woman and had a daughter, but he had to leave them and flee to avoid arrest by the ever aggressive French, returning to Moscow. There he set up a system for patriotic countrymen to come study Marxist philosophies and to go home to spread their knowledge. In 1941, Quoc traveled back through China under the assumed name of Ho Chi Minh, the name that would stick with him for the rest of his life. (It meant “He Who Enlightens.”) During the World War Two years of Japanese occupation in Vietnam, Ho traveled back to Vietnam for the first time in decades, to head the Vietminh Front, along with future general, Vo Nguyen Giap and others. With China’s help, they carved out for themselves some territory in northern Vietnam and solicited help from both Russia and the US, of all countries.
After the war was over, Ho declared Vietnam an independent country, much to the delight of his countrymen who viewed him as a hero. The French had other plans, and with US backing, returned to re-colonize Indochina. Ho and the Vietminh went into hiding and started conducting guerrilla warfare, eventually demoralizing the French and gaining power, ultimately resulting in the military destruction of the French at Dien Bien Phu, and France’s essential surrender, resulting in a split Vietnam, where the northern part would be governed by Ho, and the southern by a corrupt president propped up by the US, one who would later be assassinated with America’s permission and knowledge.
One thing you have to understand is this – the Vietnamese wanted a free and independent unified Vietnam, even most of the southerners. Thus, the Viet Cong, who started making their appearance in 1961 with the north’s backing. Ho continued to seek a political solution, but Lyndon Johnson would have none of it and with the suspicious Gulf of Tonkin incident, he brought the US right into the war. Something that will forever be remembered as one of the most stupid things done by a US president. It was an unwinnable war. Ho said that the Vietnamese may lose 10 soldiers for every one American soldier, but that Vietnam would outlast America, and he was right.
Ho’s influence started to wane as he aged, on into the 1960s, but even as a figurehead, he still played a large role. Power had shifted to other Vietnamese leaders, such as Le Duan, but until Ho’s death on September 2nd, 1969, he was viewed as the legitimate leader of his people and a fighter for the oppressed the world over.
The book, aside from an epilogue, ends with Ho’s death and briefly describes the end of the war, so you won’t get much information about how the war ended or why, but this book goes a long way to demystifying a mythical man of immense power and stature, and for that, the author should be applauded. Perhaps I should end this review of this strongly recommended book by citing the final paragraph in the book, a book written by a man who worked at the US Embassy in Saigon back during the war:
“Ho Chi Minh, then, was … an ‘event-making man,’ a ‘child of crisis’ who combined in his own person two of the central forces in the history of modern Vietnam: the desire for national independence and the quest for social and economic justice. Because these forces transcended the borders of his own country, Ho was able to project his message to colonial peoples all over the world and speak to their demand for dignity and freedom from imperialist oppression. Whatever the final judgment on his legacy to this own people, he has taken his place in the pantheon of revolutionary heroes who have struggled mightily to give the pariahs of the world their true voice.”
January 31, 2020
When I was looking for a biography for this leader and revolutionary of Vietnam, I was afraid of finding something superficial that either attacked him or made him into a saint.
This was the book I was looking for. It was expertly researched and gave all the background of how modern Vietnam has been set up and how it was able to defeat both France and the Unites States. It explained the communist and nationalist ideology that went behind decisions to work with multiple parties and with countries like China, USA, France and the Soviet Union.
I learned so much about the history of modern Vietnam through this, it was a masterpiece of a biography.
This was the book I was looking for. It was expertly researched and gave all the background of how modern Vietnam has been set up and how it was able to defeat both France and the Unites States. It explained the communist and nationalist ideology that went behind decisions to work with multiple parties and with countries like China, USA, France and the Soviet Union.
I learned so much about the history of modern Vietnam through this, it was a masterpiece of a biography.
June 29, 2016
A comprehensive read about Ho Chi Minh and modern Vietnam history. I have a whole new amount of respect for Ho Chi Minh after reading this. And no it's not because I think he was a saint as painted by the authority.
We can spend all day debating whether Ho is a communist or a nationalist, but for me, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Given the resources and circumstances, he did what he thought was the right thing to do and made the most out of it. He did achieve his goal, gaining independence for his country, even at the expense of million deaths. But who am I to judge ?
We can spend all day debating whether Ho is a communist or a nationalist, but for me, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Given the resources and circumstances, he did what he thought was the right thing to do and made the most out of it. He did achieve his goal, gaining independence for his country, even at the expense of million deaths. But who am I to judge ?
February 12, 2021
I'm glad it's over. There were very interesting points in the seemingly never ending litany of events, speeches and memorandums attributed to the man and those around him, and it does tie together, but entertaining it was not.
In defense of the book, the research is impeccable and to say that it is comprehensive is an understatement. Many of the stories I have not seen anywhere else, but it is painfully dull most of the time.
In defense of the book, the research is impeccable and to say that it is comprehensive is an understatement. Many of the stories I have not seen anywhere else, but it is painfully dull most of the time.
December 24, 2019
SPOILER ALERT!
The whole book could read like this:
Ho Chi Minh goes to a meeting, he speaks, he talks with lots of people you will only see named once in the 500+ pages of this long and dry biography, Ho Chi Minh goes to another meeting.
Oi.
The whole book could read like this:
Ho Chi Minh goes to a meeting, he speaks, he talks with lots of people you will only see named once in the 500+ pages of this long and dry biography, Ho Chi Minh goes to another meeting.
Oi.
March 22, 2022
This was certainly thorough. I can certainly say that Ho Chi Minh is probably one of the least understood and most misunderstood leader from the 21st century. Constantly misrepresented in media and definitely misrepresented by Western eyes. He was a man with conviction and desperately wanted to see his country free of the yoke of Imperialism and like many was pushed into the arms of the Soviets when the West (America specifically) would not help in the quest for Freedom. Though it would seem during the Indochina war things got a little off track of how Ho initially directed his country, the influence of China and more militant followers pushed the more Noble and Peaceful Ho and the policies of the Vietnamese communists into a darker position.
Final Take: I have a lot of respect for Ho Chi Minh, the man was certainly determined and unwilling to give up and did everything possible to see a peaceful solution before war - of course the French would not stand for that. It is a shame Ho passed before the end of hostilities and the unification of his country, he certainly could have done more to lead them should he had been just a little younger.
Final Take: I have a lot of respect for Ho Chi Minh, the man was certainly determined and unwilling to give up and did everything possible to see a peaceful solution before war - of course the French would not stand for that. It is a shame Ho passed before the end of hostilities and the unification of his country, he certainly could have done more to lead them should he had been just a little younger.
August 14, 2015
[I]n a real revolution … the best characters do not come to the front. A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards comes the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time...The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement--but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims.– Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
This quote, in a corrupted form, swirled inside the brainpan as I read this biog., which is both excellent and as well written and clear as can be reasonably expected from a life which, of necessity, both generated and included a bewildering variety of acronyms and names consisting of three monosyllables. I am afraid that the libertarian trolls who seem to lurk around certain corners of Goodreads will, if they stumble here, take this to mean that I think Ho is some sort of non-violent secular saint who had his vision of a perfect revolution snatched from him by lesser souls. I believe no such thing. Let's be clear: this is a man who had no trouble ordering that his political opponent be beaten by thugs, and who looked away as kangaroo courts executed hundreds, probably much more, accused of opposing the government-run plan for redistribution of land.
This is a good book if you have some background in the topics covered, esp. Communism in the 20th Century and the US war in Vietnam. It's not necessary to be an expert, but if this is your first books on the topic, it's going to be tough sledding for you.
For a scholarly work, it's astonishingly well written, even if the above-cited acronyms et al sometimes are a little overwhelming. Also, towards the end, as Ho's power recedes, the North Vietnamese government spins out of Ho's control, and the US war in Vietnam reaches a new level of insanity, Ho actually disappears from the narrative for pages at a time. I can see why the author thought this was necessary, as he wished to keep the narrative on the important (if disastrous) events which Ho's life and work caused. But Ho's disappearance from the book may be disappointing for people who read biographies for the reason I do, that is, because seeing an age through the life of an individual helps me get my brain around the problem of imagining a place, time, and experience vastly different from my own.
One thing about this otherwise admirable book makes me want to get up on my hind legs and whinny. Seemingly like many other books that first saw the light of day before the ebook reader warped the practice of publishing, this book gives the impression that, when somebody converted the book from whatever form it previous had (since it was published in the year 2000, I'm guessing floppy disks) to Kindle format, no one was around to read it for mistakes. That is not so incomprehensible: times are hard in the publishing rackets and Hyperion doesn't want to have to pay for a single instance of enrollment in the state-run health care exchange that it doesn't have to.
But the alleged beauty of electronic media is the ease with which it can be edited, viz. Wikipedia. This manifestation of electronic media is lacking in this particular publication, meaning, I cannot go in and correct the dozens of instances in this book where, for some reason, “t” is replaced with “r” and, even more strangely, visa versa, so the book is littered with the following distractions:
Splir, sufficienr, foor, cleat, aurhority, execured, healrh, poinred, libetation, polirical, concenttating, sarisfied, relativety, grearly, meerings, defear, thar, discoveted, lettet, whar, pteviosly, pteserve, significanr
It was very distracting, and will probably continue to be distracting for future readers. However, there was an upside, which is that a reader gets to hope with every page of this long tome that soon an unintended transposition would yield an amusing malapropism. Spoiler alert!: eventually, a reasonably amusing malapropism appears. In it, the author seems to be telling us that Ho quoted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen thusly: “All men … must always remain free and have equal tights.” This unexpected detour into the lamentable world-wide class-driven disparity in the quality of leggings is, I'm afraid, the only thing even remotely resembling a joke, intended or otherwise, in this long and worthy book.
It is nonetheless very worth reading and a very impressive work of scholarship.
June 9, 2014
Simply great. I think this is a non-biased biography of Ho Chi Minh, a controversial figure in 20th century, not only to Vietnam and Vietnamese people, but also for the world history at that time.
Too many good details and they are highly linked together, so my only recommendation is read it !
Too many good details and they are highly linked together, so my only recommendation is read it !
September 3, 2020
Cuốn sách được đọc nhân kỷ niệm quốc khánh và vừa kịp hoàn thành tức thì trong ngày lễ.
Cuốn sách làm rõ được một vấn đề lớn là liệu rằng Hồ Chí Minh là một nhà cách mạng giải phòng dân tộc hay một nhà cách mạng vô sản. Câu trả lời của tác giả, được ghi nhận một rõ tại phần kết luận của cuốn sách, trong trường hợp này là một giải pháp dung hòa: "cả hai". Tuy nhiên, nếu đọc xuyên suốt cuốn sách thì dường như William Duiker nghiêng về phương án đầu tiên hơn. Khởi đầu của Hồ Chí Minh đi tới cách mạng, cách mạng dân chủ tư sản hay cách mạng vô sản, là lòng yêu nước và khát khao đem lại độc lập dân. Trong xuyên suốt quá trình hoạt động cách mạng hoạt động chính trị, các sách lược và chiến thuật của Hồ Chí Minh, bao gồm việc đi theo phe cộng sản, cũng chỉ để đáp ứng mục đích này.
Cũng với việc giải đáp câu hỏi mối quan hệ của Hồ Chí Minh với cách mạng giải phóng dân tộc và cách mạng vô sản, William Duiker cũng cố gắng làm rõ hơn về nhân cách hay "con người thực" của Hồ Chí Minh. Mặc dù, tác giả cho rằng Hồ Chí Minh là một nhân cách lớn, hết lòng vì sự nghiệp giải phóng dân tộc và có lối sống giản di, nhưng, một lần nữa, một câu trả lời trung dung là "bác hồ" vẫn có những quyết định và hành động thể hiện "tệ sùng bái cá nhân" đối với chính mình. Một trong những minh chứng cho điều đó là việc tự viết nhật ký và "tô vẽ" hình tượng về bản thân. Dường như, khía cạnh này William Duiker không thể hiện xuất sắc như đã thể hiện con người của Hồ Chí Minh trong vấn đề chính trị. Thật vậy, có thể vì nguồn sử liệu không đầy đủ, đặc biệt đáng lưu ý là cuốn sách không có nhiều nguồn từ các cuộc phỏng vấn mà phần lớn là những tài liệu chính thức đã được giải mật của Việt Nam, Hoa Kỳ, Pháp và các nước khác, đời sống cá nhân của Hồ Chí Minh chưa được khắc họa đầy đủ để đi đến kết luận nêu trên. Thêm nữa, đối với con người phương đông nói chung và người Việt Nam nói riêng, việc tự viết nhật ký hoặc một cuốn sách tổng hợp khi cuối đời có vẻ như không là việc hiếm, ví dụ như, Trần Trọng Kim với Một Đời Gió Bụi, Phan Bội Châu với Phan Bộ Châu niên biểu.
Một câu hỏi lớn nhưng chỉ được nhắc tới sơ qua trong cuốn sách là liệu Hồ Chí Minh có phải là một nhân vật chính trị độc tài. Trong quan hệ với các đồng chí của mình, Hồ Chí Minh không thể hiện điều này nhưng cuốn sách lại đề cập rằng phần lớn quan chức hoặc nhân vật chính trị của Việt Minh hoặc Việt Nam Dân Chủ Cộng Hoà đều có sự tôn trọng và trung thành nhất định, dù là những người có đường lối đối lập như Trần Phú, Lê Hồng Phong, Lê Duẩn hay những học trò và đồng minh thân cận như Võ Nguyên Giáp hay Nguyễn Lương Bằng. Vậy thì có khi nào Hồ Chí Minh tác động tới các quyết sách lớn bằng sự ảnh hưởng phi chính thức đối với đồng chí của mình. Cuốn sách chưa trả lời được câu hỏi này khi không có được những bằng chứng xác tín về việc Hồ Chí Minh và các đồng chí của mình đã đối đầu và dung hòa như thế nào với nhau trong việc đưa ra các quyết sách lớn và đồng thời, đưa ra câu trả lời chắc chắn về con người chính trị của Hồ Chí Minh. Dù vậy, có thể nhận thấy, với quan điểm dung hòa xuyên suốt cuốn sách, William Duiker có xu hướng cho rằng Hồ Chí Minh không phải là một nhân vật chính trị độc tài dù rằng đủ sự dày dặn chính trị và thực dụng để đạt được mục đích tại tùy từng thời điểm.
Cuốn sách là một gợi mở hợp lý và hấp dẫn để bắt đầu một chủ đề lớn.
Cuốn sách làm rõ được một vấn đề lớn là liệu rằng Hồ Chí Minh là một nhà cách mạng giải phòng dân tộc hay một nhà cách mạng vô sản. Câu trả lời của tác giả, được ghi nhận một rõ tại phần kết luận của cuốn sách, trong trường hợp này là một giải pháp dung hòa: "cả hai". Tuy nhiên, nếu đọc xuyên suốt cuốn sách thì dường như William Duiker nghiêng về phương án đầu tiên hơn. Khởi đầu của Hồ Chí Minh đi tới cách mạng, cách mạng dân chủ tư sản hay cách mạng vô sản, là lòng yêu nước và khát khao đem lại độc lập dân. Trong xuyên suốt quá trình hoạt động cách mạng hoạt động chính trị, các sách lược và chiến thuật của Hồ Chí Minh, bao gồm việc đi theo phe cộng sản, cũng chỉ để đáp ứng mục đích này.
Cũng với việc giải đáp câu hỏi mối quan hệ của Hồ Chí Minh với cách mạng giải phóng dân tộc và cách mạng vô sản, William Duiker cũng cố gắng làm rõ hơn về nhân cách hay "con người thực" của Hồ Chí Minh. Mặc dù, tác giả cho rằng Hồ Chí Minh là một nhân cách lớn, hết lòng vì sự nghiệp giải phóng dân tộc và có lối sống giản di, nhưng, một lần nữa, một câu trả lời trung dung là "bác hồ" vẫn có những quyết định và hành động thể hiện "tệ sùng bái cá nhân" đối với chính mình. Một trong những minh chứng cho điều đó là việc tự viết nhật ký và "tô vẽ" hình tượng về bản thân. Dường như, khía cạnh này William Duiker không thể hiện xuất sắc như đã thể hiện con người của Hồ Chí Minh trong vấn đề chính trị. Thật vậy, có thể vì nguồn sử liệu không đầy đủ, đặc biệt đáng lưu ý là cuốn sách không có nhiều nguồn từ các cuộc phỏng vấn mà phần lớn là những tài liệu chính thức đã được giải mật của Việt Nam, Hoa Kỳ, Pháp và các nước khác, đời sống cá nhân của Hồ Chí Minh chưa được khắc họa đầy đủ để đi đến kết luận nêu trên. Thêm nữa, đối với con người phương đông nói chung và người Việt Nam nói riêng, việc tự viết nhật ký hoặc một cuốn sách tổng hợp khi cuối đời có vẻ như không là việc hiếm, ví dụ như, Trần Trọng Kim với Một Đời Gió Bụi, Phan Bội Châu với Phan Bộ Châu niên biểu.
Một câu hỏi lớn nhưng chỉ được nhắc tới sơ qua trong cuốn sách là liệu Hồ Chí Minh có phải là một nhân vật chính trị độc tài. Trong quan hệ với các đồng chí của mình, Hồ Chí Minh không thể hiện điều này nhưng cuốn sách lại đề cập rằng phần lớn quan chức hoặc nhân vật chính trị của Việt Minh hoặc Việt Nam Dân Chủ Cộng Hoà đều có sự tôn trọng và trung thành nhất định, dù là những người có đường lối đối lập như Trần Phú, Lê Hồng Phong, Lê Duẩn hay những học trò và đồng minh thân cận như Võ Nguyên Giáp hay Nguyễn Lương Bằng. Vậy thì có khi nào Hồ Chí Minh tác động tới các quyết sách lớn bằng sự ảnh hưởng phi chính thức đối với đồng chí của mình. Cuốn sách chưa trả lời được câu hỏi này khi không có được những bằng chứng xác tín về việc Hồ Chí Minh và các đồng chí của mình đã đối đầu và dung hòa như thế nào với nhau trong việc đưa ra các quyết sách lớn và đồng thời, đưa ra câu trả lời chắc chắn về con người chính trị của Hồ Chí Minh. Dù vậy, có thể nhận thấy, với quan điểm dung hòa xuyên suốt cuốn sách, William Duiker có xu hướng cho rằng Hồ Chí Minh không phải là một nhân vật chính trị độc tài dù rằng đủ sự dày dặn chính trị và thực dụng để đạt được mục đích tại tùy từng thời điểm.
Cuốn sách là một gợi mở hợp lý và hấp dẫn để bắt đầu một chủ đề lớn.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2017
finished this one this afternoon. i really liked it, comprehensive as can be regarding ho's life and much of the study is a biography of the life of viet nam to the death of the man known as ho chi minh, a man of many names through his life, ho being the one most known.
i read this history/biography of ho chi minh after reading in The C.I.A. Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists if the work of the oss in vietnam had continued under the cia and william donovan's leadership, there would have been no american casualties there in subsequent decades. ho chi minh wold have been the leader of a democracy aligned with the united states.
there's a small bit more, that in that work, but that's the jest of it, got me curious, untutored student of history that i am.
i think: no, not after reading this biography.
ho chi minh obviously an influential man was also pragmatic and said what he thought needed to be said to achieve the end: the liberation of vietnam.
a lenin type revolution was that means to that end and although ho paid lip service to the ideals of the french, liberty, equality, fraternity as well as paying lip service to the words of our own u.s. declaration of independence, in practice that liberty was not forth-coming. throughout, ho is portrayed as a man that wants vietnam free, independent.
that was achieved, after a fashion, after the end of the world war number two although the result was a divided viet nam. ho wanted a socialist, communist vietnam, and throughout his life he did what he needed to so to achieve that end. after the french defeat, hundreds of thousands of catholics left the north, hundreds of thousands more stayed. there came a time when the communist party in the north, after the fall of the french, and before the full institution of communism in the north...or, as that full communist government was in the making that they followed the mao-chinese model and used some of the same type of behavior.
looked for that phrase, chinese, but it is like modern-day facebook...bitch and complain about another. liberty, equality, fraternity be damned. i find it i'll come back to it.
another section of the book, late in the narrative, an american asks ho why he didn't embrace democracy. other than that on a personal level he had seen that the french didn't practise what they preached, the u.s.s.r. offered help so he took it there. ho said what he said, did what he did, pragmatic that he was, to the end: independence for vietnam.
this author too makes the point, somewhat, or points to the same thing quoted from that cia doctors book. duiker says no, not likely.
reading this, in the week before trump is inaugurated (today, 2.5 hours ago), i have a greater appreciation for the checks and balances instituted in this country at its founding. there are no checks and balances inherent in communism.
ummm...another point...i wish duiker had gone into it a bit more about the geneva accords, or plans, or what-have-you...after the world war. it was at that point, the end result, a creation of two viet nams, both "free" to a degree...but that didn't satisfy ho chi minh. he also wanted a communist/socialist state. i'd wished duiker had explained a bit more what the geneva plan or wishes said...something about free elections. that never happened.
the communist party was very much ready, in a position anyway, more to the north close to china but also very much in the south, to institute the beginnings of a communist government. but the powers-that-be were involved enough at the end of the war that it wasn't going to happen.
ummmm. what else?
one reviewer remarked that his e-version had funny mistakes...the letter "r" read as a "t" at times. men have equal tights. heh! yeah, you betcha! my kindle version had no mistakes like that though i have seen mistakes like that reviewer posted about.
too, it is curious how even in vietnam eventually, as in russia, lenin encouraged a temporary continuation of private enterprise to promote rapid economic growth and technological modernization. so, like i said, they say what they need to say, they do what they need to to toward one end...ho wanted an independent vietnam...but one that embraced communism.
another review said something about the dominoes didn't fall. well, they did, after a fashion. vietnam invaded cambodia, a revolutionary government was installed in laos...after the fall of saigon.
ummmm...what else?
self-criticism...that was another idea, one that actually seems to have some merit. *notes to my self here.
ultimately, communism sacrifices the fate of the individual to the goals of the master plan...
okay, yeah, that land reform deal, after the fall of the french in '54...looking for that phrase, chinese in origin....
and then later...after ho's death...closer to the 80s...the book does go past the 1960 date as one reviewer has it...like i said, this is as much a biography of sorts of the country as it is ho...perhaps the two are one and the same. "the politburo approved plans to stimulate the stagnant economy by adopting market social sim and opening the country to foreign investment, while encouraging a more tolerant attitude toward the expression of ideas among the populace."
and a page or two later..."vietnamese advocates of reform...recognized the need to raise the standard of living before embarking on the road to a fully socialist society."
ummm...duiker asks late in the study, why did ho chi minh continue to embrace marxism-leninism after its severe limitations in protecting such values had become clear? (i'd go back to the land reform time, before the onset of u.s. involvement...and that phrase that i still haven't found...
duiker answers the question. i tend to agree with him. late in the study.
anyway...people were killed, there was a revenge of sorts, lowly peasants to the landed gentry.
i guess what i'm saying is that millions have died under communism, from the time of lenin/stalin to the present day.
doggonit! i wish i cold find that phrase! opposite of self-criticism...a kind of criticism directed at the landed gentry during the land reform time...picture one person on his knees, a crowd around him, accusing him of fault. reminded me of modern day facebook. reckless words piercing like a sword....
so...not much of a review, more of a "notes to my self" kinda thing. if i can i'll revise it, rewrite it, probably not...who's going to read it anyway, but me? i find that phrase...sheesh! i thought i highlighted it, too.
oh yeah!
there was a point in ho's life where he spent time in russia, the u.s.s.r. at a training camp. we'd call it a terrorist training camp today. people from many different countries were there, studying lenin, revolutionary theory. that is a bit mind-boggling.
or...given some thought...is it any different than any "school" or university where ideas are discussed? ummm....no...the goal of that school where ho studied was dedicated to world communism. later there are some insights into khrushchev...insights into quite a few ideas related to the cold war....and stuff...
"speak bitterness" is the phrase...at the 65% mark. trying to highlight it now and it won't work!
heh! i'd like, at this time, to say hi to the happy campers at the n.s.a. there in utah. how orwellian! and how like modern facebook where "speak bitterness" is the norm of the day! mao is doing cartwheels! onward! ever onward!
i read this history/biography of ho chi minh after reading in The C.I.A. Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists if the work of the oss in vietnam had continued under the cia and william donovan's leadership, there would have been no american casualties there in subsequent decades. ho chi minh wold have been the leader of a democracy aligned with the united states.
there's a small bit more, that in that work, but that's the jest of it, got me curious, untutored student of history that i am.
i think: no, not after reading this biography.
ho chi minh obviously an influential man was also pragmatic and said what he thought needed to be said to achieve the end: the liberation of vietnam.
a lenin type revolution was that means to that end and although ho paid lip service to the ideals of the french, liberty, equality, fraternity as well as paying lip service to the words of our own u.s. declaration of independence, in practice that liberty was not forth-coming. throughout, ho is portrayed as a man that wants vietnam free, independent.
that was achieved, after a fashion, after the end of the world war number two although the result was a divided viet nam. ho wanted a socialist, communist vietnam, and throughout his life he did what he needed to so to achieve that end. after the french defeat, hundreds of thousands of catholics left the north, hundreds of thousands more stayed. there came a time when the communist party in the north, after the fall of the french, and before the full institution of communism in the north...or, as that full communist government was in the making that they followed the mao-chinese model and used some of the same type of behavior.
looked for that phrase, chinese, but it is like modern-day facebook...bitch and complain about another. liberty, equality, fraternity be damned. i find it i'll come back to it.
another section of the book, late in the narrative, an american asks ho why he didn't embrace democracy. other than that on a personal level he had seen that the french didn't practise what they preached, the u.s.s.r. offered help so he took it there. ho said what he said, did what he did, pragmatic that he was, to the end: independence for vietnam.
this author too makes the point, somewhat, or points to the same thing quoted from that cia doctors book. duiker says no, not likely.
reading this, in the week before trump is inaugurated (today, 2.5 hours ago), i have a greater appreciation for the checks and balances instituted in this country at its founding. there are no checks and balances inherent in communism.
ummm...another point...i wish duiker had gone into it a bit more about the geneva accords, or plans, or what-have-you...after the world war. it was at that point, the end result, a creation of two viet nams, both "free" to a degree...but that didn't satisfy ho chi minh. he also wanted a communist/socialist state. i'd wished duiker had explained a bit more what the geneva plan or wishes said...something about free elections. that never happened.
the communist party was very much ready, in a position anyway, more to the north close to china but also very much in the south, to institute the beginnings of a communist government. but the powers-that-be were involved enough at the end of the war that it wasn't going to happen.
ummmm. what else?
one reviewer remarked that his e-version had funny mistakes...the letter "r" read as a "t" at times. men have equal tights. heh! yeah, you betcha! my kindle version had no mistakes like that though i have seen mistakes like that reviewer posted about.
too, it is curious how even in vietnam eventually, as in russia, lenin encouraged a temporary continuation of private enterprise to promote rapid economic growth and technological modernization. so, like i said, they say what they need to say, they do what they need to to toward one end...ho wanted an independent vietnam...but one that embraced communism.
another review said something about the dominoes didn't fall. well, they did, after a fashion. vietnam invaded cambodia, a revolutionary government was installed in laos...after the fall of saigon.
ummmm...what else?
self-criticism...that was another idea, one that actually seems to have some merit. *notes to my self here.
ultimately, communism sacrifices the fate of the individual to the goals of the master plan...
okay, yeah, that land reform deal, after the fall of the french in '54...looking for that phrase, chinese in origin....
and then later...after ho's death...closer to the 80s...the book does go past the 1960 date as one reviewer has it...like i said, this is as much a biography of sorts of the country as it is ho...perhaps the two are one and the same. "the politburo approved plans to stimulate the stagnant economy by adopting market social sim and opening the country to foreign investment, while encouraging a more tolerant attitude toward the expression of ideas among the populace."
and a page or two later..."vietnamese advocates of reform...recognized the need to raise the standard of living before embarking on the road to a fully socialist society."
ummm...duiker asks late in the study, why did ho chi minh continue to embrace marxism-leninism after its severe limitations in protecting such values had become clear? (i'd go back to the land reform time, before the onset of u.s. involvement...and that phrase that i still haven't found...
duiker answers the question. i tend to agree with him. late in the study.
anyway...people were killed, there was a revenge of sorts, lowly peasants to the landed gentry.
i guess what i'm saying is that millions have died under communism, from the time of lenin/stalin to the present day.
doggonit! i wish i cold find that phrase! opposite of self-criticism...a kind of criticism directed at the landed gentry during the land reform time...picture one person on his knees, a crowd around him, accusing him of fault. reminded me of modern day facebook. reckless words piercing like a sword....
so...not much of a review, more of a "notes to my self" kinda thing. if i can i'll revise it, rewrite it, probably not...who's going to read it anyway, but me? i find that phrase...sheesh! i thought i highlighted it, too.
oh yeah!
there was a point in ho's life where he spent time in russia, the u.s.s.r. at a training camp. we'd call it a terrorist training camp today. people from many different countries were there, studying lenin, revolutionary theory. that is a bit mind-boggling.
or...given some thought...is it any different than any "school" or university where ideas are discussed? ummm....no...the goal of that school where ho studied was dedicated to world communism. later there are some insights into khrushchev...insights into quite a few ideas related to the cold war....and stuff...
"speak bitterness" is the phrase...at the 65% mark. trying to highlight it now and it won't work!
heh! i'd like, at this time, to say hi to the happy campers at the n.s.a. there in utah. how orwellian! and how like modern facebook where "speak bitterness" is the norm of the day! mao is doing cartwheels! onward! ever onward!
January 14, 2020
The author did a great job of gathering and verifying sources about Ho Chi Minh's mysterious life. The book shows the audience the turns in history at Ho Chi Minh's time and corresponding changes in his actions and beliefs. It also sheds light to the conflicts and struggles within the North Vietnam leadership in terms of both ideologies and perception about the war. Ideologies aside, Ho Chi Minh did dedicate his entire life - from age 20 to age 79 - to pursue his cause of making the country independent from the French and then unifying the country. Unfortunately, it came at the expensive cost of 1 million lives and division among Vietnamese people until today. I think research / books like this help people understand more about the Vietnam war conflicts, which is the first step for people to put the past behind and move forwards to a collaborative future.
May 19, 2020
Ho Chi Minh lived an absolutely life, traveling all over the world, running from the authorities, learning multiple languages, participating in not one, but two socialist revolutions. Uncle Ho also played all sides of the political to complete his life dream, national sovereignty for Vietnam. He played the USSR off of The USA and The PRC during the the very tense time that was the Cold War. I like the deep dives into policy decisions and Central Committee Party Plenums that decided the tactics that affected how the DRV would act during the Franco-Vietminh conflict, the Vietnamese War and the Sino-Soviet Split. This was truly an amazing read
January 10, 2021
A very good biography of a man who seemed to be much more of a nationalist than communist.
February 5, 2023
A very intensive look at what is known about Ho Chih Minh's life, with a good framework of what went on around him over the course of decades. If you're interested this is great; if not this will be a slog, especially with the large number of aliases he used, and the nature of Marxist-Leninist theory along with it's changes over the century.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews