Customer Reviews

Ho Chi Minh: A Life

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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.

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.

This has been a good year of biographies for us social studies teachers. Short's excellent look at Mao, Bix's bio of Hirohito, and a tough but neccessary read on Ataturk. After all of that reading and bucks spent on books I was looking forward to reading some fun stuff. But how could any good global studies teacher pass a new biography of Ho Chi Minh. He, like Ataturk, has only been on every New York State Global Regents for the last 6 years! And I certainly could not resist after seeing Duiker on c-span discussing the book.

First and foremost...is it a good book? YES! It was very informative and highly readable once you made it past the opening chapters and got used to reading the endless Vietnamese names. Also, please note that while the book is readable, it is not a fast read. This book took me over three months to read, and I am a pretty avid reader with a decent background in Vietnamese history. So be warned, great book but time consuming.

The book is well researched and documented. To me the highlights of the book dealt with Ho Chi Minh's political views, his history as a communist in not just Vietnam, but France, and the USSR. I enjoyed learning about all his various identities and all the places he travelled. But the best parts of the book I felt dealth with Ho Chi Minh at the end of WWII and his attempts to gain independence for Vietnam, his attempts to win over US support, and to negotiate with the French. Duiker did a great job with this time period. Also, Duiker points out which I did not know, how much more radical other members of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement were by the 1960's. I had always thought he was in complete charge like a Stalin or Mao and had no idea about the various leaders and views to surface towards the end of his life.

Duiker also does a great job discussing how Ho tried to deal with both the Russians and Chinese. Anyone who stills believes in a singular monolethic communism should read this.

But the big question...was Ho more communist or more nationalist? Should the US have supported Ho like a Marshall Tito in Asia? Duiker does an awesome job on this.

Yes, HO was a communist. Ho was an active communist in Vietnam, France, and even studied in the USSR. Ho believed in communism and felt the capitalist system would collapse. Duiker shows how Ho's growing up under French colonialism lead to his views on capitalism and communism.

However, Ho was a nationalist also. Ho clearly did everything he could to gain independence for Vietnam. He even courted the US and even negotiated as much as he could with the French.

Duiker shows clearly that Ho was both. He was a nationalist and a communist, not one or the other but both. Duiker also points out that Ho Chi Minh felt a world wide communist revolution was going to happen eventually and that it was neccessary for Vietnam to gain independence first and industrialize before communism could really happen there. So Ho's nationalisn was clearly linked to his communism. Almost like a Yin and Yang....they were a apart of each other.

Duiker shows that it was not as simple as some make it for the US to back Ho Chi Minh over the French at the end of WWII. However, it is clear that whatever the risk of backing Ho Chi Minh it would have been a better option then the one we took. 55,000 brave American's died in Vietnam. How might history have been different if we backed an indepenedent Vietnam over re-establishment of French colonialism.

Duiker points out how the Europeanists in the state dept. one over the Asia specialists who backed dealing with Ho Chi Minh. Again, hindsight is 20/20 but its food for thought. because in the end 55,000 Americans died, Vietnam became entirely communists as well as Laos and Cambodia at that time.

This summer, i have the opportunity to visit Vietnam as a teacher and as someone born after the war. I feel this book gave me some excellent background for my trip and lots of food for thought.

So, if you have a lot of time and want to read a good book about an interesting figure in history I highly recommend Ho Chi Minh by William Duiker. It was worth the money and the time spent reading it.

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.

William Duiker has performed a great service to those of us who study and teach the Vietnam War. Prior to the publication of "Ho Chi Minh: A Life," there was no biography of Ho that I felt comfortable recommending to my students. The problem with Ho-biography has always been the seemingly infinite maleability of its subject: Ho was perfectly happy to reinvent himself--and his public face--to serve his tactical ends. He actively participated in the creation of a mythology of "Uncle Ho," the selfless leader of a his nation. As a result, it has always been a challenge to disentangle the reality from the story that best suited his ends at any given time. Was he the monastic patriot who sacrificed family and home for his only love, the Vietnamese nation? Or did he actually have a wife hidden away somewhere? Did his visit to New York as a young man cause him to admire America, or was this a convenient story to tell the OSS's "Deer Team" during the fight against Japanese occupation? And just which of those names that appeared on Vietnamese nationalist pamphlets in the inter-war years were penned by "Nguyen the Patriot" (Ho Chi Minh)?

I used to tell my classes that Ho was the leading figure of the 20th Century about whom we knew the least. Duiker has admirably taken on these issues, filled in many gaps, and provided credible "guesstimates" where we are unlikely to ever have rock-solid proof. Ho--as Nguyen--spent so much time in the shadow world of Indochinese nationalist expats in Paris, Moscow, and South China that some things must be given up as lost.

Even more admirable than his painstaking piecing together of Ho's wherabouts and activities prior to World War II is Duiker's attempt to answer the trickiest interpretive questions presented by this very mysterious and contradictory man. This is, after all, the kindly old "Uncle Ho" who set his trrops on the unarmed protesters at Vinh, protesters who came from the same region and same background as Ho himself. Hardly an act of great sympathy for suffering peasants.

Duiker's conclusion that Ho was both deeply nationalist AND deeply communist provides the only satisfactory answer that I can find to the contradictions of his actions. This serves as a useful corrective, as well, to those who would overdo the "Lost Opportunity" thesis. America might have been able to deal on some level with Ho's Vietnam from the 1940's. But those who would argue this case will need to do so with more nuance and less stridency in the future. On this matter--as on everything else, it appears-- Ho would have made his decisions tactically, while continuing to pursue his long-term strategic goals for Vietnam. Goals determined by BOTH nationalist and communist ideologies.

I agree with a previous reviewer that the amount of detail in this book is formidable. This was necessary to achieve what Duiker has sought to do. But his publisher may want to consider a scaled-down paperback version of this book for classroom use and the general reader. Most people will not be very interested in the details of Ho's father's professional frustrations or the workings of the French Communist Party after WWI. But I would gladly assign a "classroom version" of this book to my students in the future.

This is how history should be done.

Dr. William Duiker's book is exceptional. A five-star book with an asterisk for special consideration. It is arguably the most reliable and balanced biography of Ho Chi Minh ever published. First of all, please note the book was dedicated "To the Vietnamese people," similar in many ways as to how Ho Chi Minh himself, amid critics, dedicated his life's work to the Vietnamese people. Regardless of how you feel about this important 20th century political leader, Duiker correctly places him from the most significant point of view -- that is to say, from the Vietnamese people's perspective first, and only then the world.

The biography beautifully melds historical gaps with hard facts. Anyone who was ever presented with such a dilemma would truly appreciate the genius with which the author was able to craft Ho Chi Minh's character and personality. Simply outstanding. Duiker does not deceive the reader into believing that his biography will answer all questions, but it does indeed illuminate one's understanding of how Ho Chi Minh operated and perhaps how he would have acted under different circumstances. A mysterious person becomes less mysterious, albeit not completely understood. As readers, we can't help but be grateful for the opportunity to learn and benefit from 30 years of research.

So impressive was Dr. Duiker's biography that we at Sonshi.com asked the author for an interview. He was open to any and all questions about Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh. From our experience, this is a mark of a true expert, someone who is on top of his or her field of study. Anyone who would like to learn more about Vietnam or Ho Chi Minh will certainly benefit from Duiker. In fact, anyone who is interested in how the 20th century was shaped should read this book, for Ho Chi Minh's influence was not relegated to only Indochina, but it was felt in the top industrialized nations as well.

We highly recommend William Duiker's Ho Chi Minh: A Life.

This is quite and entertaining and interesting book it does however have some faults. The main one is that he author has some trouble establishing what Ho's role was in the Government of North Vietnam from the granting of independence onwards. This of course is not a fault of the author but rather it reflects the problems with the documentation of the period. A lot of the minutes and documents of the government of Vietnam have not been made public. Ho was a person who was generally respected in Vietnam because of his long association with the Nationalist cause. He was clearly used as a figurehead for the regime and the author suggests he also played the role of a diplomat. The author suggests that the way Vietnam was run was by a shifting coalition of the leading group. He seems to think that Ho may not have been responsible for the land reform policies that led to bloodshed in the 50's. It is also clear that the move to a wholly state run economy occurred after his death in the 70's. The reality is however that it is not possible at this point to write an accurate biography of Ho as so much of his later political life is a matter of speculation.

Despite this the book is a fascinating picture of the early life of Ho up to the take over of power in what was to become North Vietnam. This period is fairly richly detailed as Ho himself wrote two autobiographical works and there is material available from the places in which Ho lived.

Reading this book one realizes how tough Communists were. Ho was the son of a provincial mandarin. He early was an opponent of French Colonialism and decided to go to France. He worked as an assistant cook on a boat for a year to finance his trip. In France he became active in the Vietnamese Community there and in fact wrote a letter to the allies at Versailles requesting consideration for the cause of Vietnam. This led him to being branded as a dangerous revolutionary. He moved to Moscow and was educated in a revolutionary school run by the Commitern. He then traveled to South China and was responsible for setting up the communist movement in Vietnam. His life from this point resembles a James Bond novel with him using disguises to move around, using false identities and being pursued by most colonial governments. On one occasion he was arrested in Hong Kong. The French sought his extradition and would no doubt have executed him if they had succeeded. British lawyers (probably paid for by Russia) worked to free him. He returned to teach in Russia and then as the second world war closed moved back to Vietnam to run the movement he had set up.

The success of Communism in Vietnam was a close run thing. In China the communists faced a corrupt and fragmented regime. In Vietnam the Communists had to content initially with the Japanese, the Nationalist Chinese and the French. The French put in an army of 200,000 to retain their colony. Their troops were well trained and they were supplied with American weapons. Vietnam was not a big country and there was not the room to move around, that had existed in China. The critical event seems to have been the success of Mao that allowed the Vietnamese to be supplied with modern weapons particularly artillery.

The book does not lead to one having any sympathy with the French as a colonial power. Prior to the French conquest the literacy rate in Vietnam was very high comparable with some western countries. Under the French it collapsed. In much the same way the French were brutal in the actions they took against Vietnamese fighting for their liberation. The book is a fascinating biography and well worth a read. It will probably not be the definitive biography of Ho Chi Min and that book won't come out until historians can access the records of Vietnam. In the meantime however it is a good examination of the period and what was a remarkable life.

This is a very readable and well-balanced account of a fascinating man, synthesized from a vast number of sources around the world. Duiker comes to the job with impeccable credentials and his admiration for Ho Chi Minh shines through: he sheds light and an informed opinion on contentious historical issues surrounding the man and the myth.

A minor complaint: detail on HCM's personal life is weak for the period 1954 until his death.

The book includes copious footnotes and a rich index.

Although the author, William Duiker, a former foreign services officer for the USA in Saigon during the 1960s, takes no side in the scholarly dispute about Ho Chi Minh's essential orientation as either a nationalist or an ideologically pure Marxist, there is little doubt from the evidence set forth in the book that Ho was first and foremost a nationalist. The evidence couldn't be clearer given the numerous occasions Ho recommended elected coalition governments to rule an undivided Viet Nam, recommendations he made to several USA officials well before the onset of the war with the USA.

I couldn't keep from wondering about the multiple millions of lives that might have been spared if the USA had only listened to its sober analysts in the region who believed Ho instead of hearkening to those caught up in the red scare.

Ho was essentially a pragmatist whose burning passion was for an independent and sovereign Viet Nam. Even his ascription to Marxist Leninism was born from his pragmatism since Marxist Leninism alone purported to provide a model by which the imperialist control of nations could be understood, resisted and broken. Accordingly, it also provided a vision through which ordinary Vietnamese citizens could foresee an end to the French imperialist occupation of their nation. Marxist Leninism was for Ho a means by which Viet Nam could become independent and self-governing.

Duiker's work provides an excellent analysis of Ho's early years leading up to his return to Viet Nam. I felt it was a bit short on content during the last years of Ho's life before the war with the USA ended. But Duiker's depiction of how the USSR and China played Viet Nam off against each other is not to be missed.

This book is worth reading.

William Duiker researched extensively thru all available archives to compile all the information into this book about Ho Chi Minh, the myth and the patriot. If the readers enjoyed every little details about the developments of Uncle Ho, parties that he set up, meetings that he attended, negotiations that took place, etc., you would love this book. But for someone like myself who wanted to learn about Uncle Ho and Vietnam along the way, I find the book to be very time consuming to read and heavy handed to remember all those party names, Vietnamese names, small towns names. But the author did provide the readers with a heavy dose of pictures, maps of Vietnams in different periods, close ups of areas such as Dien Bien Phu which was significant for the creation of the modern Vietnam. In this book, we read about Uncle Ho's humble upbringing; his brief & tragic love life; his capture in Hong Kong which would almost cost him his life; his tireless efforts within the jungles trying to gain local support from small villages for his small but growing fast army; his extensive travel abroad; the exploitation of his own image as a simple person leading a simple life but fighting tireless for the betterment of his people; his assistance of the United States during the World War 2 campaign and along the way, he earned respects of many Americans but working relationships couldn't be carried thru due to the changes of Presidents; his pragmatism in clinging to countries that were willing to help him in attaining independence from France; and later on, his shrewdness in playing off a country with the other to obtain assistance to reunite North & South as one Vietnam entity; his last will to be cremated not adhered to but ended up embalmed in a Mausoleum. Many decisions he had made, some rite & some wrong & towards the end, the author analysed if Uncle Ho is in fact a Communist or a patriot. In the book, it said that despite Uncle Ho is not as revered by the younger Vietnamese generations these days, and that his legacy is not remembered in the South as much as in the North, his contribution towards Vietnam and that region is unmistakable, and the greatness of him doing anything for his country is to be admired and revered of. It also said that his replacements such as Le Duan simply lacked the charisma and the actions taken by him was bordering towards extremes rather than moderation, and therefore, further along, the support for his party seemed to wane, and the impacts caused by Le Duan's actions simply devastated Vietnam, and thus, the exodus of boatpeople, seeking a better life elsewhere. In this biography, readers would also understand why United States wouldn't intervene in France's colonialism of Vietnam after the World War 2 as it required its available force there to prevent the spreading of Communist power along the North, both USSR & China. But later, as the red power is gaining in force along the North, only then, the United States intervened in the South to prevent communism to be spread all around the world. But that was a marriage in hell with the Dien brothers as they supported the Catholics and therefore, they had a bad blood with the Buddhists and corruption was rampant, and that the population there was suffering. Moreover, with Khrushev in power in Russia, with his denouncement of Stalin, he wanted to keep the peace around the region & therefore, refused to endorse Vietnam engaging in war with the United States but China, on the other hand, reckoned a war was imminent and all this while, Uncle Ho, wished to keep concile both countries as inner conflict would give the Communism a bad name. Should readers simply want to learn about Vietnam, I do recommend another great book, which certain parts of the book is used as excerpts in Ho CHi Minh biography anyway: The Sacred Willow written by Duong Van Mai Elliott. It told the story of a Vietnamese family spanning 4 generations and by reading the plights of the family members who comprised of both Northerners and Southerners and the situations happening around them, you would get a feel of the developments of Vietnam towards the end. A superb effort.