Vietnam: A New History

In Vietnam, Christopher Goscha tells the full history of the events that created the modern state of Vietnam, from antiquity to the present day. Generations of emperors, rebels, priests, and colonizers left complicated legacies in this remarkable country. Periods of Chinese, French, and Japanese rule reshaped and modernized Vietnam, but so too did the colonial enterprises of the Vietnamese themselves, and these imperial collisions made Vietnam home to an extraordinary array of peoples and cultures. Over the centuries, numerous kingdoms, dynasties, and states have ruled over—and fought for—what is now Vietnam. The bloody conflict between Ho Chi Minh's communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the American-backed Republic of Vietnam was only the most recent instance when civil war divided and transformed Vietnam.

A major achievement, Vietnam offers the grand narrative of the country's complex past. It is the definitive single-volume history for anyone seeking to understand Vietnam today.