by William J. Duiker
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Product Description
To grasp the complicated causes and consequences of the Vietnam War, one must understand the extraordinary life of Ho Chi Minh, the man generally recognized as the father of modern Vietnam. Duiker provides startling insights into Hos true motivation, as well as into the Soviet and Chinese roles in the Vietnam War.
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
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Mind blowing book; needless to say it's simply awesome, 2008-07-07
I was born in Vietnam during the war. University educated both in Vietnam and Australia; I was brought up to admire and respect Uncle Ho, but never actually knew what he did for Vietnam. Uncle Ho love him or hate him it's your call, for me it's unconditional love .
I strongly recommend this book for all Vietnamese patriots; it's worth every cent.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
a book that you need to see, 2008-03-02
If you want to know more about Ho Chi Minh, the biggest father of Vietnam, and also understand more about the country and its people, this book is recommended.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A good start, 2008-01-26
No matter what country or area they represent, political leaders typically have an aura of mystery about them, and they usually cultivate this without hesitation. The media seems to be delighted to help them in this goal, sometimes deliberately and at other times inadvertently. The truth is an anathema for these individuals, and ironically the same is true for the people over which they rule, who feel that it is "practical" or "pragmatic" to do so, and that doing otherwise would threaten the "natural order of things." This situation makes it difficult for those who want to obtain information on the life and opinions of these leaders, with the goal of course in putting them in historical context and to possibly learn from their accomplishments and their mistakes. Obtaining accurate information on political leaders is therefore very difficult, sometimes taking a lifetime of effort, or at least periods of time that are prohibitive for the average citizen. Thus one must depend in large measure on historians, professional or otherwise, for this information and considering their track record one must still be in a mindset of extreme skepticism.
The same level of skepticism must be applied to his book, not because the author cannot be trusted to remain objective, but rather with the realization that he too is subject to the same biases and paucity of information that everyone is. Ho Chi Minh has been described as a humble leader of the Vietnamese resistance against French occupation of Vietnam and the American intervention some years later. If by leader one means he occupied the top of a social hierarchy then this indeed may be true, but if one means that his orders were carried out to the letter by his subordinates then this assertion needs far more evidence than is available. "Uncle Ho" as he was called by some, certainly played a role in the conflicts in Vietnam, and by his own admission he cultivated the aura of mystery referred to above. But the fighting and dying were done by those who were not motivated by the need for this aura, and history does not record their deeds.
The author endeavors to chronicle the life of Ho Chi Minh based on the information that publicly available (official archives in Vietnam are forbidden to researchers). He is quick to point out that information is difficult to come by, but he does allude to the fact that this has changed in recent years, and he gives source notes at the end of the book. With this in mind the reading is fascinating, and has many surprises for those who are curious about the history of Vietnam and the Vietnamese resistance to foreign occupation and intervention. It is highly doubtful that those who supported the American intervention in Vietnam will change their minds solely by reading this book, and a similar thing can be said for those who were against it, but by reading it both groups have expressed a willingness to plug through a very sizeable book. The significant block of time needed to read it is well worth it, and may cause many to change their perspectives after further investigation with other source materials.
It is easy throughout the book to at times paint Ho Chi Minh as a war criminal, and at other times a hero, but his life was complex enough to warrant a dropping of labels. It is perhaps natural to feel some admiration for him and all the individuals who faced up to the awesome power of both the French and American military, but at the same time one wonders if perhaps they should have concentrated more on building up their country in the North rather than engage in the liberation of South Vietnam. Certainly their energy would have allowed them to be successful, and leave their compatriots in the South to join them when ready. With two million casualties and climbing due to unexploded ordinance, one cannot help but engage in some degree of speculation in this regard.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
It's a book that will break your heart, 2007-07-28
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.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
FATHER OF THE VIETNAMESE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE , 2006-12-01
By way of an introduction I note that while I was writing a draft of this book review President George W. Bush had just completed participation in an international conference held in Vietnam. In one of the small ironies of history a photograph of the meeting between American and Vietnamese leaders displayed a huge bust of the late Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh hovering over the room. There was a time in the 1950's and 1960's when Ho was more than a mere historical reminder in the room. To many youth, particularly in the West, `Uncle' Ho represented the most intransigent opposition to Western imperialism. Today, at a time when heroes for leftists are few and far between and Vietnam's leadership has taken a distinctly different direction toward the shoals of "market socialism" and away from Ho Chi Minh's ideas a look at his politically flawed but fascinating life seems in order.
The Russian Bolshevik revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky on more than one occasion noted that the Western labor movement had not produced the kind of hardened, resilient and committed revolutionaries produced in Russian and Eastern Europe. While there were definite historical reasons for that divergence centered on different political conditions it nevertheless remained an abiding different (and does to this day). The life of Ho Chi Minh as presented in the biography under review is yet another example that highlights that difference, this time in early 20th Asia, in revolutionary commitment and intensity. While the fates and the political directions of both Trotsky and the Stalinist Ho diverted shapely the commitment to communism, as they understood it, remained a lifelong commitment, even under inhumanly trying circumstances. Ho's biographer has done an excellent job of gathering the materials, some only recently accessible from Soviet and other archives, which enable a knowledgeable reader to follow the ups and downs of his political career. That, said, the author does not and cannot really understand the nature of communist commitment and in the end can not draw any serious political conclusions about the life of his subject. His book nevertheless will be a definitive of study of Ho's life and influence.
Forty or so years ago the name Ho Chi Minh brought forth either anger or admiration. Anger, from the former colonialist power France for having been forced to abandon Vietnam after its military defeat and from a neo-colonialist American imperialist military force about to get its comeuppance from guerilla and regularly armed forces led by the wily Ho. Admiration, from the youth of the world, particularly the West, that a `new' strategy might be aborning to defeat the various imperialisms of the world and create another road to socialism not based on the Soviet or Chinese-style models.
Ho essentially built up his organization from scratch under very loose Communist International supervision from Moscow. From an American Communist's point of view the Communist International always seemed to be intervening, for good or evil, in the internal life of its party to insure implementation of the party line. Sometimes it was merely the lastest telegram from Moscow that changed the party line, for example, around the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Such was apparently not the case in remote Vietnam. While Ho was a committed Stalinist he was clearly no self-serving bureaucrat of the Soviet-type. Rather it is his virtually unchanging lifelong political perspective of a variation of the `bloc of four classes' strategy handed down from the Comintern in the lead up to the Chinese Revolution of the mid-1920's that places him in the Stalinist camp. Previously I have called such a strategy as applied to places like China and Vietnam as Stalinism under the gun. Apparently the vicissitudes of Vietnamese mountain life and geographical proximity led to more contact with the Chinese revolutionaries. Seemingly Ho was more influenced by them than the Soviets on some aspects of revolutionary rural warfare. However, a look at Ho's political actions, especially in the post World War II period, shows a pronounced bias toward Soviet leadership in the showdown of between the Soviet Union and China for leadership of the international communist movement. That tilt was not reciprocated by the Soviets as they generally saw the Vietnamese struggle as marginal to their global interests.
One of the most contradictory phenomenons that enveloped the revolutionary movement in the 20th century was the fact that unlike Karl Marx's projections the socialist revolution did not start in the Western industrialized society. I t started in economically backward Russia and moved eastward. It started in Russia with a small although very politicized industrial working class dependent on the good will of a vast peasantry and preceded to areas like Vietnam where the industrial working class was either virtually non-existent or had been militarily or politically decimated. Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam under French colonialism represented just such a development. Hence, from the beginning of the revolutionary struggle in Vietnam it was an alliance between the revolutionary intellectuals and the peasantry that formed the basis for the national liberation front not the traditionally Bolshevik intellectual/worker combination prescribed by Lenin. This is important, because the program which will animated the peasantry, land to the tiller, is very different from the program of workers democracy. And that in a nutshell is the difference between Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam. The difference between `socialism in one country' and permanent revolution' Ho won, in the short term but can anyone today argue that Vietnam is on the road to socialism as either Stalinists or Trotskyists would understand the phenomena.
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