Ho Chi Minh: A Life

Amazon.com Price: $28.60 (as of 10/11/2019 13:25 PST- Details)

Description

To grasp the complicated causes and consequences of the Vietnam War, one should be mindful the peculiar life of Ho Chi Minh, the man normally recognized as the father of modern Vietnam. Duiker provides startling insights into Ho’s true motivation, in addition to into the Soviet and Chinese roles in the Vietnam War.
Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) fought for half a century to free Vietnam from foreign domination, and the story of his life illuminates the ongoing struggle between colonialism and nationalism that still shapes world history. William J. Duiker, who served in Saigon’s U.S. embassy all through the Vietnam War, spent 30 years delving into Vietnamese and European archives, in addition to interviewing Minh’s surviving colleagues, in an effort to write this definitive biography. The son of a civil servant from a traditionally rebellious province, the future president of North Vietnam used to be known for more than 20 years as Nguyen That Thanh. It used to be under this name that he founded the Vietnamese Communist Party, having concluded after reading Lenin’s analysis of imperialism that revolutionary Marxism used to be among the best tool to achieve Vietnam’s independence. He spent 30 years in exile, cementing his communist ties in Moscow and working with Vietnamese rebels from a base in China, before assuming the name Ho Chi Minh in 1942, when the forces unleashed by World War II gave the look to be clearing the way for Vietnamese liberation. French intransigence and American anti-communism would delay the emergence of an independent, united Vietnam for another 30 years, but Ho became an icon who inspired the communist North and the Southern Vietcong to keep fighting. Focusing almost exclusively on political events and ideological debates, Duiker depicts Ho as a nationalist first and foremost, but also as a convinced (though pragmatic) Marxist who believed socialism would help his country modernize and correct ancient inequities. This long, very detailed biography is not for the casual reader, but anyone with a serious interest in modern history will relish a dense narrative that fully conveys the complexities of the man and the issues with which he grappled. –Wendy Smith

Home » Shop » Books » Subjects » Arts and Photography » History and Criticism » History » Asia » China » Ho Chi Minh: A Life

Recent Products