Vietnam A new history

Historian Goscha (Univ. of Québec) integrates recent historical approaches to the region's shifting borders and populations in a very readable text. The author delivers a clear and authoritative political history, analyzing relevant religious movements, partisan divisions, and competing civilizing missions. Well-selected maps and illustrations help draw general readers into the material. Questions of gender, cultural change, and the highland experience are contained in specific chapters rather than incorporated into the main narrative. Vietnamese diacritical marks are omitted throughout, while French words and names have the appropriate accents. The author refers to the Vietnamese rural population as "peasants" (rather than "villagers" or "farmers") up to the 1980s, and, unfortunately, an otherwise useful section on terminology does not address that issue. One small note: the Vietnamese word bánh does not derive from the French word pain (bread), as claimed in the text, but rather from the Chinese term bing. A larger concern is that the website associated with the book and cited in the introduction does not currently deliver the promised historiographical essays. Instructors could productively teach this work alongside Sources of Vietnamese Tradition (CH, Mar'13, 50-4008), edited by George Dutton, Jayne Werner, and John Whitmore. Summing Up: Recommended. Public, general, and undergraduate libraries. --Erica J. Peters, Culinary Historians of Northern California

When Americans think of Vietnam, they might think mostly of the Vietnam War. Goscha (history, Univ. of Quebec at Montreal; Going Indochinese) certainly covers the conflict in great detail; however, this work is much broader in scope, beginning in 3000 BCE and concluding in the early 21st century. The author paints a vivid picture of a complex country that has been both victim (by China and France) and soldiers of colonialism (the Cham and others). It conveys the historical separations and competing forces (religions, ethnicities, ideologies, etc.) that continue to shape the region. Readers will see a cyclical pattern to the history of Vietnam. For example, the division between north and south in the mid-20th century is only the most recent example of rival politics vying for dominance. Gosha adroitly illustrates the experiences and contributions of both Viet and non-Viet ethnicities. Readers will come away with a better appreciation for the complexity of Vietnam's history and the diversity of its peoples. -VERDICT Essential for readers with an interest in Southeast Asian history. See also Robert Miller and Dennis Wainstock's Indochina and Vietnam for a more exclusive focus on the war years.-Joshua Wallace, -Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.