Vietnam: A New History 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

In Vietnam: A New History, Christopher Goscha, an American-born history professor at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, who has published several books and articles dealing with Indochina and Vietnam, utilizes new research and new perspectives in a balanced account of this Southeast Asian country. He describes political, economic, social, and religious developments. His attitude toward the various factions in Vietnam, and toward the foreign nations involved in her history, is objective and dispassionate. He emphasizes that Vietnam, in its current borders, is a recent creation. Until relatively recently, this territory has been held by separate ethnic and political entities. In their long history, the Vietnamese have been imperialists as well as the victims of imperialism. On the other hand, there has been much continuity in Vietnamese history. Vietnam’s foreign conquerors, the Chinese, the French, and the Japanese, often had to rely on the personnel and pre-existing procedures of the natives.

Vietnam, far from being a “backwater,” as characterized by Henry Kissinger, was always a strategically important area. As such, it has long been subject to outside influences, especially from China and France. As Goscha points out, the country’s history is more than the story of the winners. Its history could have taken another course, for example, Vietnam, like Korea, might still be divided. And the country’s character could have been different if reform movements had succeeded.

Goscha’s emphasis is on the 19th and 20th centuries. He devotes only 80 pages to the entire period before the French conquest (1858). The organization of the volume is somewhat confusing; some early developments, which should have been treated in chapter one, are relegated to chapter 14. (In some respects, chapter 14, which deals with highland peoples, feels a bit like an afterthought.) Thus, only after the main account has taken us to 1995, does Goscha describe how the Vietnamese descend from the Austronesians (from Taiwan) and Austroasiatics (from China), both of which arrived in the Red River delta around 4,000 years ago, and gradually expanded southward through conquest and settlement.

Goscha briefly describes the actions of the Ly, Tran, Le, and Nguyen dynasties, which came to power after the tenth century, in which Vietnam gained independence, after centuries of domination by China. He recounts the conflicts between the Vietnamese and the border peoples (e.g., Cham, Khmer, Jarai, Tai) with which they fought. At times, various military clans exercised the real power behind a figurehead emperor. The only rulers treated in detail are the Nguyen emperors Gia Long (1802-1820) and Minh Mang (1820-1841).

Goscha does not believe that the French conquest brought about a sudden modernization of Vietnam. Change was more gradual. The Catholic Church had brought Christianity and the Roman alphabet to Vietnam two centuries earlier. And the French retained many of the existing administrative procedures, including the Confucian examination system, and assisted ongoing Vietnamese expansion at the expense of neighboring peoples. But the French did promote urbanization, capitalism, science, and medicine. Such French policies as construction of roads, railroads, and canals had a major impact on Vietnam.

Some Vietnamese patriots were influenced by the anti-imperialist ideas circulating in China and Japan. Others hoped Japan would drive the French out of Vietnam. Still others sought a liberalization of French colonial policies. But the French responded to the 1908 peasant revolt with a crackdown. Although some liberals in France disapproved of such repression and such colonial policies as high taxes, monopolies, and coercion of labor, and despite the efforts of such colonial officials as Governor General Albert Sarraut, the reform impulse was frustrated. French settlers in Vietnam opposed most reforms. Moreover, the changes sought by most Vietnamese reformers would benefit Vietnamese elites, while not affecting most Vietnamese. French liberals, even French Communists, continued to support French control of Vietnam. In this situation, some, like Ho Chi Minh, who had initially sought moderate reforms, eventually turned to Communism.

The brief Nationalist Chinese occupation of Red River delta after World War II provided a rare opportunity for some free speech and organization, but also permitted Vietnamese Communists to consolidate their organization and build their own army. When the French attempted to restore their control in 1946, the first Indochina War (1946-1954) broke out between them and Vietnamese nationalists, including the Communists. After the 1954 Geneva Conference ended that war, Vietnam was divided along the 17th parallel. Both North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem were centralized one-party states that practiced indoctrination, censorship, and employed security forces to suppress their opponents, some of whom were incarcerated in concentration camps.

Goscha’s book does not delve deeply into the policy-making decisions of the nations involved in the Indochina Wars. But it does reveal some perhaps surprising differences among top North Vietnamese leaders—for example, General Vo Nguyen Giap opposed conventional war against South Vietnam after Diem’s fall in 1963, fearing such escalation would bring direct military conflict with the U.S. (Later, Giap opposed the TET offensive.) As Giap had anticipated, the second Indochina War (1964-1975) led to a major military confrontation with the U.S. Communist involvement in Southeast Asia was neither monolithic nor consistent. (In the late 1950s, both Russia and China discouraged North Vietnam from attacking South Vietnam. The Soviet Union even proposed that the U.N. admit both North and South Vietnam.) In the third Indochina War (1977-1991), Vietnamese fears of encirclement by China and Cambodia as China’s surrogate, and Chinese fears of encirclement by Russia and Russia’s surrogate Vietnam, led to war among these Communist countries as Cambodia, and later China, invaded Vietnam.

Goscha contends that modern conditions may bring change to Vietnam. Such developments as the end of central economic planning, the end of collectivized agriculture, the growth of the middle and managerial classes, the desire for more consumer goods, the quest for upward mobility, and the pursuit of education abroad, all press the government toward new policies. The government must maintain prosperity in order to retain its power. Meanwhile, the proliferation of private associations stimulates interest in a wide range of particular concerns. And the Internet encourages organization and the exchange of ideas.

This book is based on secondary literature, mainly recent articles in scholarly journals and monographs published in the U.S. and France. Goscha cites almost no Vietnamese publications, or archival records. Goscha alludes to recently opened Vietnamese records, but does not specify which records have been opened or which remain closed. The book contains 8 maps showing ethnic and political divisions over the years; 461 pages of text, 60 pages of endnotes which (in the absence of a bibliography) serve as a useful guide to sources, a 30-page index, and two 8-page sections of black and white photographs.

This important book provides a solid history of modern Vietnam and its neighbors. It will prove highly valuable to anyone interested in these subjects.

Having taught in Hanoi from 2005 to 2011, having read a dozen books on the history of Vietnam written by Vietnamese, French and English scholars, having written a book of narratives dramatizing the lives of Vietnamese people over the centuries, and working now on a novel inspired by the life of their ancient heroine, I bought Prof. Goscha's volume thinking, ‘I probably know it all already.’ Well, the book gave me a fresh perspective on Vietnam.

Prof. Goscha looks at the country through a kaleidoscope, identifying the ever changing coloration and patterns of politics and culture. He sees not one monolithic Vietnam but “several remarkable varied ones.” He recognizes the complexity of Vietnamese historical experience and shows us imperial Vietnams, divided Vietnams, and modern Vietnams..

For example, he perceives Vietnam as the product of several colonial pasts – which also includes its own! This aspect is seldom highlighted by Vietnamese scholars. Here, we are shown how after pushing out the Chinese in the 15th century, Vietnam began to push its own empire southwards, conquering weaker tribes, establishing settlements, imitating the Chinese by testing direct and indirect rule, thus enacting its own version of ‘mission civilisatrice’ long before French colonizers arrived in mid 19th century.

Focusing on developments of the last 200 years, Prof. Goscha includes many aspects of the country’s historical development which have been overlooked in more conventional accounts. Eschewing periodization (the tendency of historians to split up the history of a country into neat periods), he chronicles the continuity of phenomena such as modernization, industrialization and bureaucratization. He also does not ‘exceptionalize’ Vietnam, but often compares the country’s historical path with the experience of other countries.

The author can write. His sentences and paragraphs are crisp and lucid. He can sketch a minor persona in a few clear-cut lines:

‘A fiery young man who had returned from Pakistan led the charge. His name was Nguyen An Ninh. Born in Cochinchina in 1900, Ninh was a product of the colonial education system. A graduate of Chasseloup-Laubat (elite licée), he spoke French beautifully and wrote it elegantly. He translated Rousseau’s Social Contract’ into quoc ngu. He obtained his undergraduate degree in law in Paris in 1921. He travelled widely in France and Europe and developed a keen interest in politics, nationalism, journalism, philosophy, and religion.’ (p. 131)

The volume is 460 pages of narrative, plus notes and Index. But it reads smoothly. There are eight helpful maps and two sets of illustrations. The cover is beautiful.

Prof. Goscha has admitted elsewhere that an eventual publisher had counselled him to write a general history of Vietnam that would be of interest to the informed, (those who travel and need more than they get from travel guides) as well as to specialists. Thus, not to go overboard on details and footnotes, and produce about 500 pages of engaging, jargon free prose, spangled with appropriate quotes and anecdotes. A tall order that has now been filled.

A magnificent one-volume history of a complicated country. Very balanced compared to most other treatments of the subject I have read, and Goscha is erudite and encyclopedic. If one is looking for a history of the war and its era, this is not it. But it provides the context for those events in the best version I have yet seen. Highly recommended.