Ho Chi Minh: A Life (Paperback)

by William J. Duiker (Author) "He entered the city quietly, with no fanfare..." (more)
Key Phrases: giua ban ngay, kien dang, thoi nien thieu, Nguyen Ai Quoc, United States, Hong Kong (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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 during the Vietnam War, spent 30 years delving into Vietnamese and European archives, as well as interviewing Minh's surviving colleagues, in order to write this definitive biography. The son of a civil servant from a traditionally rebellious province, the future president of North Vietnam was known for more than 20 years as Nguyen That Thanh. It was under this name that he founded the Vietnamese Communist Party, having concluded after reading Lenin's analysis of imperialism that revolutionary Marxism was the most effective 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 seemed 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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
It's difficult to think of someone more qualified to write this biography than Duiker (The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam), the retired Penn State University historian who has specialized in the Vietnam War for more than three decades. In his massive, thoroughly researched andDin the mainDquite accessible new biography, Duiker succeeds extremely well in illuminating the life and times of Ho Chi MinhDlong North Vietnam's leader, a man Duiker calls a "master motivator and strategist" and "one of the most influential political figures of the twentieth century." Covering both the personal and political life of the revolutionary leader, Duiker fascinatingly traces Ho's early travels to New York, Boston and Paris, as well as his many years in exile in France, China, Thailand and (during WWII and the war against the French of 1945 to 1954) in the rugged mountains of northern VietnamDeras in Ho's life for which documentation has only recently become available. Duiker's detailed recounting of the momentous and extremely complicated events that took place in 1945 following the Japanese surrender, when Ho Chi Minh's Vietminh revolutionary party seized power in northern Vietnam, is riveting. And his account of the not-always-harmonious relations between Ho and the Communist leaders of China and the Soviet Union probes a subject that has long been overlooked by Western scholars. In the end, Duiker portrays Ho Chi Minh as a fervently anticolonial nationalist who, though a committed Marxist, honestly thought he could count on the United States, which had promised to oppose French colonization after WWII. Referring to a long-raging debate about Ho, he says, "The issue is not whether he was a nationalist or a CommunistDin his own way he was both." 32 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (November 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078688701X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786887019
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #263,349 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a welcome addition to understanding Ho Chi Minh., October 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Ho Chi Minh: A Life (Hardcover)

695 pages of valuable and well written research on Ho Chi Minh. For westerners this is a much needed book, dispelling many myths and providing great detail on this otherwise secretive leader of Vietnam. Although some publicity indicated it is the only biography on Ho Chi Minh and that isn't true, it far surpasses those of Charles Fenn and Jean lLcouture both written before the war in Vietnam ended in 1975. Of course a lot more information became available over time. It's just amazing how much of it the author found, some coming from France and Russian archives. Having just returned from a trip to Ha Noi where Ho is even more a symbol of the country then Washington is to us, it was good to find this newly published book to put a human face on the man still called Uncle Ho and revered by his people. For those interested in the facts of Ho Chi Minh's life rather then the propaganda put out by those who revere him and those who hate him, this is the book to read. Then draw your own conclusions.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A history of the most interesting leader of the century, July 14, 2001

By	Charles Ashbacher "([e-mail])" (Marion, Iowa United States([e-mail])) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Ho Chi Minh: A Life (Hardcover)

During the time when American involvement in Vietnam was at its' peak, my high school social studies class conducted a debate about Ho Chi Minh. One side argued that he was a nationalist who chose communism because it was the only way he could get the assistance he needed. The other side countered with the point that he was an international communist agent first and a nationalist second. Now, over three decades later and after having read this well-researched book, I still don't know. In reading the book and sifting through the details of his life, no definitive answer can be reached. It also seems clear that we will never know, which is unfortunate, because the difference was substantial.
On the side of his being a communist first there is the fact that he was a Comintern agent who spent many years of training in the Soviet Union, surviving the Stalinist purges. Only those whose loyalty was considered absolute tended to survive those years. However, he apparently was once arrested and in danger of being liquidated. On the side of being a nationalist first are the countless times when he pragmatically dealt with his enemies over the objections of his comrades. However, he always justified it as the first step in retrenchment a la Lenin and his New Economic Policy.
The primary reason for the involvement of the United States in Vietnam was the perception that he was an agent of the international communist conspiracy, hoping to expand their influence to include all of southeast Asia. However, if he had been perceived as a communist more in the mold of Tito of Yugoslavia, the successive U. S. administrations may have accepted his leadership. Certainly he gave them enough opportunities, having good relationships with some American OSS agents during the second world war. One does not have to think too hard to appreciate the difference that would have made in that area of the world.
Ho Chi Minh was one of the most amazing, well-traveled and culturally experienced leaders of this century. Until I read this book I had no idea that he had spent some time in the U.S., working as a steward on a ship so that he could travel and experience other cultures. His reasoning was that he needed to understand other cultures if he was to deal with them. To me, this is the strongest argument in favor of his being a nationalist first and a communist second. As his adventures are chronicled, you realize that this was a very idealistic man who held one idea uppermost in mind, namely independence for Vietnam. Traveling around the world by working as a menial and spending his few earnings to write independence literature does not seem to be the behavior of a communist agent.
Armed with hindsight, this book is sometimes difficult to read. He does try hard to avoid the heavy involvement of the United States and yet there is an inevitability to the escalation of the war. At times, the by now aged "Uncle Ho" becomes an iconic afterthought of the other leaders of North Vietnam as they aggressively pursue a war to the conclusion. In any case, he is one of the most interesting of the national leaders of the twentieth century and in this definitive biography you will find the description of his complex path to national icon, both on the positive and negative side. Definitely the most interesting biography I have read in the last few years.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The best biography of Ho, but that's not saying much at all, December 7, 2003

By	Mani Tadayon (Seoul, South Korea) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First, one should be very clear that there are really no other serious scholarly works on Ho. There are accounts by journalists and Vietnamese who knew Ho, but these are usually very shallow and involve little or no research.

This book is a good general introduction to Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese history, but lacks crucial insight into Ho's life after World War 2, which is very disappointing. Ho Chi Minh was a remarkable person if only for the number of languages he spoke (French, English, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese) and the breadth of his knowledge and experience. He is very unlike the grim, close-minded communist stereotype. Ho's globe-trotting life, however, makes the biographer's job tremendously difficult, as he frequently went from one corner of the world to another, often living in secrecy or in remote jungles with a small group of colleagues.

Conducting interviews with people who knew Ho and his colleagues is probably not possible today. Those still living who knew Ho would be very reluctant to speak candidly about him, especially with a stranger from overseas, now that he is such a politicized figure in Vietnam. And those willing to speak about him (usually derogatorily) are usually members of the Vietnamese diaspora who have an axe to grind.

Reading this book, you can really sense the difficulty of finding records of Ho's life in Russia, China and Vietnam. His life in France and Hong Kong is well researched, but there are gaping holes in the biography at the most critical junctures, especially after his return to Vietnam.

Ho's decision to return to Vietnam after over 30 years abroad is not explained. Nor is his relationship to important figures such as Stalin, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Also, the biography suffers from a rigid chronological structure, which is very confusing given Ho's complex life. Broader trends and patterns are rarely explained. Sometimes you feel the author is just trying to move you along to a period where he has done some research or has materials to draw upon.

I suppose it is most telling that the author often cites extremely unreliable Vietnamese propaganda and Ho's own autobiographies as the sole source for some aspects of Ho's life.

Well, I still believe this book is good, and I can't blame the author for not being able to spend a decade doing research in Vietnam, China and Russia to dig up scarce sources on Ho's life. Maybe Robert Caro will one day become interested in writing about Ho, and will spend 20 years researching his life, as he did with Lyndon Johnson's. Of course, he'd have to learn Chinese, Russian and Vietnamese along the way...

The sad fact is that Ho, like most figures in history will only be known in an incomplete way. It's so sad that we have complete biographies of the boring buffoons who are in power today, but are in the dark about much more interesting figures.