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Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954-1975 (Contributions to the Study of World History)

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The Vietnam War instigated by Ho Chi Minh caused 12 million people to be forcibly relocated: one out of two South Vietnamese had been a refugee at some point in their lives.

Anti-communist ideology was the cause of the 1954-55 exodus during which one million left North Vietnam for the South. From 1966-72, artillery, bombing, communist repression forced peasants to leave their villages to migrate to cities. The atrocities of the Viet Cong during and after the 1968 Tet attack caused people "to vote with their feet": they ran away as soon as they heard communists were coming. This was also the cause of the 1975 diaspora during which two million people escaped Vietnam on rickety boats. At least 500,000 others drowned or died from other causes at sea.

The author who is to be congratulated for his in-depth analysis of this important problem.