Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present Illustrated Edition

This book is very interesting to read. It is the third comprehensive treatise of Vietnamese history by American/Canadian professors that I bought in the last few years . Although I cannot say I have read any of them in its entirety, I love them all. I am using them not only as reliable reference material to review, update and expand my knowledge about my own country of origin, but also as assessments, from expert outsiders, of our culture and our identity in relation to the world, to understand better what we were and where we came from, to reassess the nationalistic bias and prejudices inherent to the post-colonial education we had received in Viet Nam and our own politicized media in the last 60-70 years. Kiernan's so far is my favorite among the three books, particularly because of its extensive discussions about language, culture, minorities, which are wake up calls for Vietnam's Kinh majority like me who grew up unaware of the plurality of the different peoples who shared this S shaped country over the last several millennia. Thank you, Professor Ben Kiernan, for your dedication .PS: On page 170, first paragraph, a friend detected an error. Mongol General Toghan was not killed in battle as stated in the book, but survived and fled back to China.(in Vietnamese Wikipedia about Toghan:Trấn Nam vương Thoát Hoan (chữ Hán: 脱欢, ký âm Mông Cổ: ᠲᠣᠭᠠᠨ, Тогоон, Toγan; ? - 1301) là một hoàng tử và là tướng nhà Nguyên trong lịch sử Trung Quốc. Ông được biết đến trong lịch sử Việt Nam qua 2 lần mang quân sang đánh nước Đại Việt cuối thế kỷ 13 thời nhà Trần nhưng đều bị thất bại). Sogetu (Toa Đô, 唆都), another Mongol general was actually killed in battle.

The book starts with prehistory and continues through 2016. It is not for someone completely new to the history and geography of the region, but it is excellent for a reader with at least some acquaintance to the region's and Vietnam's history. It does a good job of setting out themes (e.g., water and mountains) that are carried through the book without seeming forced. The book is also quite good and balanced on post WWII political and economic history.I am sitting in my hotel room in Hoi An Vietnam, and I am glad to have read the book before and during my trip.

Vietnam is far far more than a war. As a region that's been settled for thousands of years, and a trade nexus for the South China Sea, it has a long and complex history. No single volume could possibly cover the whole history of Vietnam, but Kiernan makes an able effort, trying to draw some cohesive themes out of a mass of history.Geography is destiny, and again and again water appears as a major theme. Rice based settled cultures flourished in the Red River delta in the north, the Mekong delta in the south, and the innumerable smaller rivers up and down the coast. Archaeological evidence records a culture that made great bronze drums and had complex chiefdoms. Vietnam enters the historical record roughly 2300 years ago as a province of China. The Vietnamese were ruled as internal vassals for roughly 1100 years, with intermittent rebellions, before finally breaking away under Ngô Quyen in 934. The next thousand years were a mess of feudal history, marked by the rise and fall of dynasties, civil wars, and a few great kings. The major trends of this era were the conquest of the southern Champa kingdom by firearms equipped Vietnamese armies, increasing trade across the region and with Europeans, and military victories over the Chinese, combined with an import of Confucian culture, and a system of scholarly exams based on knowledge of the Chinese classics.1887 marked the third turn in Vietnamese history, with the authoritative victory of the French over the Vietnamese, and the colonization of the last independent Vietnamese kingdoms. French rule was marked by exploitation, but also the introduction of the romanized Quoc Ngu alphabet, and the rise of a local vernacular culture rather than one based on Chinese classics. Journalists and revolutionaries agitated against the French, and syncreatic millenialist sects arose (the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao). The course of the first and second Indochina Wars are covered briefly, as well as Vietnam post-1975, with the slow redevelopment of the country postwar, and economic liberalization without political liberalization.Someone who knows more about the pre-1954 history of Vietnam might find something to criticize, and if you have strong opinions about the present government, you'll likely be disappointed. My biggest problem with this book is that it is very dry. I like this kind of stuff, and it still took me 10 days. Glad to have read it, even if I still can't remember the order of the dynasties.

This is a well researched, thorough history of Viet Nam. I spent ten years in Vietnam, speak the language and read it reasonably well. I became deeply attached to the country and its people. I have been unhappy that to Americans Vietnam is simply a war and nothing else. Prof Kiernan understands this and has dedicated his history to changing it. He seeks to paint Vietnam in all its colors: nation, society, culture. He has written a very readable, but careful and scholarly, history. This may not be for the casual reader, but anyone who wants some depth behind their history will be rewarded.

Ben Kiernan covers thousands of years in this significant history of Vietnam. The book is especially valuable for the constants that Keirnan uses to give focus to his book: the importance of water, the ever-present threat of China, and the multi-ethnic nature of the Vietnamese people and their religions.

Very enjoyable read. The author presents cultural evolution, linguistic evolution, climate fluctuations, agricultural developments, and the move from tribal to monarchy to colonialism to now.I am American. In the 1960s-1970s, I was quietly against the war because my friends were getting drafted and killed. I was clueless about what was happening to the Vietnamese people. This book gives a framework for looking back on events.

Tells slot about Vietnamese history and it's kings and Queens it is close to 500 pages long very informative. I enjoyed this book.

La historia de Vietnam explicada desde lo básico. Fundamental para entender el desarrollo de la cultura y tradición de Vietnam.

Das Buch erzählt die facettenreiche Geschichte dieses Landes wirklich sehr detailreich. In Englisch, sehr flüssig und äußerst objektiv geschrieben, machen dieses Werk zu einem absoluten Top-Nachschlagewerk!

Ben Kiernan's book is very readable, enjoyable and worthwhile. It is the most thorough study of Viet Nam, from pre-history through the present, that I have ever read. Anyone interested in the Viet Nam War, contemporary Viet Nam, or indeed world history and politics would do well to read this book.

There are very few single-volume histories of Vietnam from earliest times to the present day, as most focus on the French and American wars, or are written in French or Vietnamese, so this fills a gap for English-language readers who want to understand the whole history of this wonderful country.

This sweeping tome provides the most comprehensive history of Viet Nam from pre-history to the current.