Books in English - Vietnam History and War

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Vietnam War - links about the war - Dien Bien Phu - History

Vietnam: A history (from USA at Amazone.com)  Stanley Karnow (1983 - 2nd edition 1997)
The book is written by a US journalist with a French culture, who spent 16 years in Vietnam (1959-1975). His background helps him depict with an incredible craft the Vietnam drama (not only the US commitment, but also the French colonial period). This monumental narrative clarifies, analyzes, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of the Vietnam war. Free of ideological bias, profound in its understanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with the participants - French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers, and soldiers. Vietnam.
$12.57 from Amazon.com (USA) - Paperback - 784 pages (2nd edition 1997) Vietnam: A Visual Encyclopedia  Philip Gutzman (2002)
Take a look back at every aspect of that turbulent era in a visual encyclopedia of over 500 extraordinary photos and alphabetized entries. Battles and campaigns, weapons of air, land, and sea, the heroes and villains, the military leaders and political powers from both sides, receive an A-to-Z treatment from all the experts and all world's best photographers. Coverage starts in 1950 with post-World War II upheavals, and ends in 1975 with Hanoi's final takeover. Special feature: a blow-by-blow chronology chart of all major military and political events. Photos range from documenting of personnel, tanks, planes, and ships, award-winning scenes of agonies suffered by combatants and innocents alike. £13.23 Paperback 448 pages (1. October 2002) Ho Chi Minh : A Life  William J. Duiker in paperback  -  Describes Ho Chi Minh's poverty-stricken youth, his expatriate years in USA, France, and Soviet Union, and his commitment to the Vietnamese revolution and reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule. A massive but thoroughly readable new biography, which depicts a pragmatist who wanted, above all, an independent Vietnam. Although Ho Chi Minh's life helped shape the 20th century, not until now has there been a major biography of this immensely important and little-understood political figure. This impressive work of history by a world-renowned authority on Vietnam now fills this gap, taking full advantage of information only recently declassified. Duiker presents this wealth of information in driven, page-turning prose. Engrossing and impeccably researched, this is a revelatory portrait.
£12.99 - Paperback - 695 pages (November 2001) Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam  Francis Fitzgerald
As a writer for the Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, New York Times Sunday Magazine, and the Village Voice Francis Fitzgerald visited Vietnam in 1966, a critical year in the U.S. involvment in Vietnam. From this visit, Ms. Fitzgerald developed an interest in Vietnam that culminated in what is generally considered to be one of the preeminent texts on the U.S. involvment in Vietnam. The text, Fire In The Lake, provides astute historical, cultural, and political analysis of the war for those who wish to understand how the United States lost the 'hearts and minds' of the Vietnamize people, and thus ultimately the war.
£7.87 - paperback 496 pages - edition with new afterword 2002 From Enemy To Friend: A North Vietnamese Perspective on the war Bui Tin (2002)
Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese Army shares his insights into aspects of the Vietnam War. Once a presidential palace guard for Ho Chi Minh and a participant in the decisive battle of the French-Indochina War at Dien Bien Phu, he later served as a frontline commander and war correspondent in the fighting against the United States. In 1973 Colonel Tin was spokesman for the North Vietnamese delegation that arranged the return of American POWs and in 1975 rode a tank onto the presidential palace grounds in Saigon. In September 1990, he left Vietnam to reside in Paris, and Bui Tin is open-minded and candid in his views about the policies and operations of the Vietnamese and U.S. governments.  
£15.44 - Hardcover - 172 pages (17 May, 2002) Our Vietnam : The War 1954-1975  A.J. Langguth  (2000) in paperback
In this thoroughgoing history of America's adventure in Vietnam, Langguth shows a clear appreciation for the war's many ironies - Lyndon Johnson's plan to build a huge dam on the Mekong River while bombing the neighboring countryside into submission, Ho Chi Minh's distress at having to battle the Americans, whose ally he had once been- while charting a clear narrative course through a dauntingly complex series of events. His highly readable book, promises to become a standard history of the era, and it is superb in every respect.
£12.38 - Paperback - 768 pages (March 2002) Another Vietnam: Pictures of the War from the other side  Tim Page, Douglas Niven (Editor), Christopher Riley (Editor)  A stunning compilation of 160  images by North Vietnamese photographers capture the events of the Vietnam War from a dramatic perspective and document daily life and battle on the North Vietnamese side. The pictures are a mixture of staged, unabashed propaganda ("I wanted my pictures to be a weapon," says photographer Mai Nam, a longtime Vietnamese Communist Party member) and evocative insights into the way the war appeared from the other side. British journalist Tim Page provides running commentary on the war, and the photographers' experiences and reminiscences, particularly those who worked with the Vietcong guerrillas in the South.  -  £28.00 Hardcover (January 2002), 180 pages The Girl in the Picture  Denise Chong
Kim Phuc was nine years old in 1972. Severely burned by napalm, she ran from her burning village and was captured on film. Denise Chong relates Kim's experience and recovery in this astonishing biography and history of America's shameful war. The photograph of Kim was one of many to turn public opinion against the war in Vietnam. This is how the picture came to be and also what happened to Kim after it was taken. It provides an insight into the country Vietnam became after the US army left, and explains why Kim finally had to flee to Canada, where she now lives. £6.39 - Paperback - 383 pages (4 June, 2001)
Photografer Nick Ut recalls the Events of June 8, 1972 The Vietnam War for Dummies   Ronald B. Frankom and Stephewn F. Maxner (2002)
A reader-friendly guide to the Vietnam War, at home and abroad.  Today, an increasing number of high schools and universities offer courses on the war, and 4.4 million Americans visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., every year. The Vietnam War For Dummies offers an easily accessible guide to all facets of the conflict, including military strategy, presidential decisions, and the media, movies, and songs inspired by the war in the 1960s and '70s. Great for gift-giving, study, or personal enrichment, The Vietnam War For Dummies proves an impressive one-stop resource on this complicated, fascinating subject.  -  £11.17 Paperback - 384 pages (1 October, 2002) Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States and the Modern Historical Experience   Gabriel Kolko (1988) - A synthesis of the revolutionary struggle and war in Vietnam, the most controversial political event in recent American history. This book balances the three sides in the protracted struggle: the Communist Party, the Republic of Vietnam and the United States, and explores the underlying political and social structures that determined significant elements of the war. By focusing on the military, economic and political institutional forces that operated both in Vietnam and the United States the author gives coherence to four decades of countless events and provides a causal explanation of the Vietnam War.
£11.99 - Paperback - 689 pages (New edition 2001) After Sorrow : An American Among the Vietnamese  Lady Borton  -  Stories of Vietnamese village women who lived through what they call "the American War." Lady Borton, frequently in Vietnam since the late 1960s and the first American allowed to live in a Vietnamese village since the war's end, listened to the gentle and fierce women warriors who smuggled weapons hidden in fish sauce, concocted camouflage from banana leaves, dug tunnels, carried messages through enemy territory, gave away their children to keep them safe, and all the while tended to the daily work of village life - providing food, burying and visiting the dead, observing religious holidays, and midwifing babies. Borton retells these stories with an ear experienced in the language, an eye for the details of village life, and deep compassion and respect.  - £9.39 - Paperback Reissue (October 1996)  Read also Learning to Work in Vietnam (10 pages, 1993) Requiem  Horst Faas (Editor) and Tim Page (Editor) (1997)
A photographic record of the Vietnam War, with photographs taken from the archives of western agencies, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. This volume is a tribute to the 134 photographers who died during the conflict.
£34.00 - Hardcover - 336 pages Tim Page's Nam  Tim Page (Photographer) and William Shawcross (Introduction) (1984)
Excellent collection of Tim Pages photographs, most have been seen before in other formats and have been widely used. The photography is excellent and brings across the human face of war like very few photographers can.
£12.76 - Paperback - 120 pages The Illustrated History of the Vietnam War  Chris McNab and Andy Wiest (2000)
This illustrated history documents every aspect of the Vietnam war, from the role of the French, through all major actions, and up to the fall of South Vietnam. The book strives to understand not only the causes, but also the war's lasting legacy. Over 250 color and b/w photos bring the conflict to life again after all these years have passed.
£15.46 - Hardcover - 256 pages Dispatches Michael Herr
Michael Herr, who wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting in the Vietnam War and turned them into what many people consider the best account of the war to date, when published in 1977. He captured the feel of the war and how it differed from any other theatre of combat, as well as the flauvor of the time and the essence of the people who were there.
£5.59 - Paperback - 208 pages New Ed (25 October, 1991)

History - Dien Bien Phu  -  Vietnam War

The Tây Son Uprising: Society and Rebellion in Eighteenth-century Vietnam  George Dutton
The Tây Son uprising (1771-1802) was a cataclysmic event that profoundly altered the eighteenth-century Vietnamese political and social landscape. This groundbreaking book offers a new look at an important and controversial era. George Dutton follows three brothers from the hamlet of Tây Son as they led a heterogeneous military force that ousted ruling families in both halves of the divided Vietnamese territories and eventually toppled the 350-year-old Le dynasty. Supplementing Vietnamese primary sources with extensive use of archival European missionary accounts, he explores the dynamics of an event that affected every region of the country and every level of society. Tracing the manner in which the Tây Son leaders transformed an inchoate uprising into a new political regime, Dutton challenges common depictions of the Tây Son brothers as visionaries or revolutionaries. Instead, he reveals them as political opportunists whose worldview remained constrained by their provincial origins and the exigencies of ongoing warfare and political struggles.
£37.00 - 293 pages - University of Hawaii Press (15 Aug 2006) - Review from IIAS Newsletter PDF Before the Revolution: The Vietnamese Peasants Under the French  Ngo Vinh Long
During the French colonial period (1900-1945), Vietnamese peasants wrote vigorously about the effects of French policies on their living conditions. The vast majority of their writings were censored or contradicted by the published works of French and Vietnamese officials, and none is currently in print. Ngo Vinh Long presents a realistic portrait of the Vietnamese determination and resiliency that brought down both the French and the American regimes. He describes the effects of French land policy on the peasants and the resulting problems in tenant farming and sharecropping, as well as peasant reaction to taxes, tax collections, usury, government agrarian credit programs, commerce, and industry. He also translates previously unavailable texts that detail the emotions of the Vietnamese people with regard to the French occupation. For the Morningside Edition, Dr. Long has written a new preface in which he describes new scholarship and changes during the last fifteen years.
£17.05, used from £2.03, 292 pages, Columbia University Press; New edition 1991, Morningside Books, Paperback A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc  Oscar Chapuis
The first work to chronicle the history of Vietnam beginning in the legendary past, a memory that is so significant to the Vietnamese identity and belief system. This history covers pre-historic times, portrays the Sino-Viet interdependence that lasted for 1,000 years and had such an influence on Vietnamese culture. When in the 15th century, the Vietnamese finally evicted their Chinese masters, they were subsequently overrun with the forces of Westernization, the spice trade and industrialization. Chapuis's history takes us to the French conquest through the regimes of Emperors Gia Long, Ming Mang, Thieu Tri, and ends with Tu Duc (1848-1883).
£56.99 - Hardcover 232 pages (September 1995) - Used available from $72.45 at Amacon.com The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai  Oscar Chapuis
This book tells the story of French interaction with Vietnam and the neighboring region, which began with the French seizure of Cochin-China and Tonking in the 19th century under Emperor Tu Duc and ended with their humiliating defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. After the conclusion of treaties with China in the nineteenth century, Western nations sought access to the resource rich region of Yunnan. After attempts at exploring the Mekong River, the French turned their sights to the Red River. Only after Jean Dupuis successfully linked Hanoi with Yunnan was Admiral Dupre able to begin the conquest of Tonking.
£56.99 - Hardcover 224 pages (April 2000) Following Ho Chi Minh : The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel  Bui Tin (1994).
As a North Vietnamese colonel and high ranking Party member, the author accepted the surrender of Saigon on April 1975. He continued to work for Hanoi until 1990, when disillusioned with the communists he moved to Paris and hoped to see a free and democratic Vietnam. Bui Tin has written a remarkable story about the Vietnamese government and the social chaos that went on, which no one outside of Viet Nam ever knew about it after 1975. In his memoir, he talked about communism being elevated to the rank of a "blind faith", the purges within the Party, the errors, greed, and corruption of communist leaders, the "arrogance of the Party".
£14.08 - Paperback - 202 pages (January 1999) The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam  William J. Duiker
In this new edition of his widely acclaimed study, William Duiker has revised and updated his analysis of the Communist movement in Vietnam from its formation in 1930 to the dilemmas facing its leadership in the postCold War era. Making use of newly available documentary sources and recent Western scholarship, the author reevaluates Communist revolutionary strategy during the Vietnam War. Based on primary materials in several languages, this respected work is essential for an understanding of Vietnam in the twentieth century.
£33.99 - Paperback - 435 pages 2nd (April 1996) - Availability within 4-6 weeks Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution In A Divided Vietnam  William J. Duiker
This supplementary book provides a history of the Vietnam War from the perspective of North Vietnam. Professor Duiker is one of the English speaking world's foremost authorities on this period of Vietnamese history and is a former foreign service officer posted in Vietnam. Based on recent scholarship and evidence, this book includes Vietnamese documents and research available to very few scholars. Quotes are sprinkled throughout the book to show how the Vietnamese felt about the events that were taking place around them, and why they decided to behave the way they did. Written for the general reader, this lively account of "the other side" includes distinctive photographs and sources.
£20.68 - Paperback - 256 pages (1994) - usually dispatched within 1-2 weeks. Vietnam : Revolution in Transition   William J. Duiker
This revised edition traces the course of Vietnamese history from its origins to the end of the Vietnam War. In considering various aspects, such as the country's political structure, its foreign relations, its economic situation and its cultural heritage, the book also sets out to show how the country has been affected a generation of conflict and socialist transformation. It concludes by looking at the factors underlying the Vietnamese revolution, and how the changes have affected both the region and course of the global Cold War.
£27.50 - Paperback - 264 pages Reissued 2nd Ed (26 May, 1995) Vietnamese Anticolonialism 1885-1925  David G. Marr
Marr's work is scholarly and sometimes difficult to follow -- but he carefully describes the complex and inexorable forces which would lead to the defeat of the French and Americans as colonial powers in Indochina. Most interesting, he describes how the dynastic and cultural tensions within Vietnam itself between 1885-1925 made colonial domination both inevitable and intolerable. Marr's book is an uncompromising portrait of a culture under siege, and its painful evolution to a modern national identity.
Paperback (May 1981)  - Out of Print - Limited Availability Vietnamese Tradition on Trial 1920-1945  David G. Marr
£16.95 - Paperback Reprint (1 May, 1984) - Availability within 4-6 weeks Vietnam 1945  David G. Marr
The year 1945 was the most significant in the modern history of Vietnam. One thousand years of dynastic politics and monarchist ideology came to an end. Eight decades of French rule lay shattered and five years of Japanese occupation ceased. Drawing on extensive archival research, interviews and an examination of published memoirs and documents, David G. Marr has written a detailed and descriptive analysis of this crucial moment in Vietnamese history, and shows how Vietnam became a vortex of intense international and domestic competition for power. - £19.95 - Paperback - 632 pages new edition (January 1998) Why Vietnam?: Prelude to America's Albatross  Archimedes L.A. Patti
Archimedes Patti, an OSS agent in Indochina at the end of WWII, witnessed the postwar struggle of Ho Chi Minh to establish an independent country based on the American constitution and encouraged by the principles of self-determination espoused by Woodrow Wilson at the end of WWI. Beginning with the Treaty of Versailles ending the Great War, Ho Chi Minh attempted to secure American support for an independent Vietnam. Despite sympathy from those Americans "in country", these overtures were snubbed by Washington and Vietnamese desires for independence were sacrificed to the interests of maintaining relationships with America's allies, France and Britain. Well-written, fascinating history of an important period for Vietnam that set the stage for America's later involvement in Indochina. - kun brugt på amazon.com The Birth of Vietnam  Keith Weller Taylor (1983)
The book begins in 300 B.C. when Viet Nam first became known to the outside world, and concludes at the end of the tenth century, when Chinese rule collapsed and the kingdom of Viet Nam first came into being. Ends with emporer Dinh Bo Linh Death in 979. Viet Nam must be first of all understood as a single nation, and then a country of rural villages, Confucius, and revolution
£15.95 - Paperback - 397 pages (1991) - Availability within 4-6 weeks
Cham Art  Emmanuel Guillon

The art of Champa (central and southern Vietnam) thrived from the 2nd to the 9th centuries. It consists chiefly of Hindi and Buddhist deities, carved in high relief from sandstone. This book describes some 100 major sculptures housed in the Da Nang Museum and also provides a historical overview.
£16.95 - Paperback - 204 pages (April 2001) - Availability: within 4-6 weeks. Hanoi: Biography of a City  William S. Logan
This text traces the history of the fabric of Hanoi from its origins 1000 years ago. It examines how the shape of the city reflects changing political, cultural and economic conditions over a millennium of intermittent warfare and waves of cultural change and migration. Drawing on his experience as heritage advisor, the author looks at the challenges facing those who seek to preserve the best features of Hanoi's architecture and streetscapes, while improving the living conditions of its residents.
£23.05 Hardcover - 304 pages (November 2000) This title is on order, usually within 1-2 weeks.

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Sidst opdateret 22-06-2009