Customer Reviews

A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc (Contributions in Asian Studies)

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This book covers the early history of Vietnam, beginning from its prehistoric relationship with China, Indonesia, India, and other neighboring cultures around 20,000 BC up until its last emperor and the beginning of French colonialism in the mid 19th century.

A lot of research and work has gone into this book, which spans some 22,000 years in under 200 pages. Yet despite all the effort, this book reads much less like a history book and more like an ill-conceived preliminary draft. The ancient history of Vietnam is a very colorful and interesting subject, but this book does not provide a compelling story. The author tries to explain how the modern nation of Vietnam came into being without any cohesiveness and without even having a thesis.

Because this book is so short, many portions of the narrative are glossed-over with great haste - some so quickly that the reader may feel caught in a whirlwind. A few other sections seem to get overly mired into minutia. There are several spelling and punctuation errors throughout the book. It is quite unpolished.

According to the publisher's website, the author is not a historian or a writer, but a "former French Merchant Marine Captain who served as maritime inspector for the French High Commissioner in Indochina and as a maritime expert at the Saigon Court of Appeals." That may explain why the book is so terribly thought out and written, but I can't understand why the publisher printed it this way.

This book is not only boring and unimaginative, but the author fails to paint even a basic picture of the rich subject material. Some passages remind me of the first chapter of The Gospel of St. Matthew: "...and Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud..." Even most `required reading' college textbooks that simply regurgitate factual information are more informative and entertaining.

Basically, it is impossible for me to justify having paid the steep selling price. Unfortunately, I have never found any other books written in English that cover the same time period in Vietnamese history. Hopefully someone else will write a better ancient history of Vietnam someday soon. This book does not tell the story of Vietnamese history in a compelling way. It is one of the worst books I have ever read.

There is negative comment (deficient in content) about this book around. However, I have on the contrary found this book quite informative. This book provides many details not taught in other common history books.

The drawback of this book to me is not a deficiency in content, but its price tag.