This book narrates the history of the different peoples who have lived in the three major regions of Viet Nam over the past 3,000 years. It brings to life their relationships with these regions' landscapes, water resources, and climatic conditions, their changing cultures and religious traditions, and their interactions with their neighbors in China and Southeast Asia. Key themes include the dramatic impact of changing weather patterns from ancient to medieval and modern times, the central importance of riverine and maritime communications, ecological and economic transformations, and linguistic and literary changes. The country's long experience of regional diversity, multi-ethnic populations, and a multi-religious heritage that ranges from local spirit cults to the influences of Buddhism, Confucianism and Catholicism, makes for a vividly pluralistic narrative. The arcs of Vietnamese history include the rise and fall of different political formations, from chiefdoms to Chinese provinces, from independent kingdoms to divided regions, civil wars, French colonies, and modern republics. In the twentieth century anticolonial nationalism, the worldwide depression, Japanese occupation, a French attempt at reconquest, the traumatic American-Vietnamese war, and the 1975 communist victory all set the scene for the making of contemporary Viet Nam. Rapid economic growth in recent decades has transformed this one-party state into a global trading nation. Yet its rich history still casts a long shadow. Along with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Viet Nam is now involved in a tense territorial standoff in the South China Sea, as a rival of China and a "partner" of the United States. If its independence and future geographical unity seem assured, Viet Nam's regional security and prospects for democracy remain clouded.

About the Author
Ben Kiernan is the author of The Pol Pot Regime, Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia, and Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur.

Reviews
Kiernan's dispassionate recording of the behaviour of the regional powers - Champa, Cambodia, China, India - should help to make Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times a durable work * Sophie Quinn-Judge, Times Literary Supplement *
Ben Kiernan shifts his gaze eastward in this ambitious study, Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present.... By assessing the long duree, Kiernan reveals the multifaceted nature of Vietnam's history and suggests that there was a relatively transient nature to the ebb and flow of the various dynasties that competed with one another within Vietnam's territory...suggesting, quite rightly, that there were alternative historical paths that might have been taken....A clearly written and broad introductory overview to the history of Vietnam that is appropriate for an upper-level undergraduate class. * Geoffrey C. Stewart, American Historical Review *
In Viet Nam, Ben Kiernan synthesises three millennia of history in a beautiful book that aids the reader with numerous maps and over a dozen photographs documenting the daily life of the Vietnamese people. It is a work full of insights for students of Southeast Asia generally and, more specifically, for comparative historians and political scientists interested in nationalism, anti-colonialism, US foreign policy, and the reform and modernisation of socialism. By taking the long view, the author successfully liberates the history of Viet Nam from the reductionist view of a US military misadventure, revealing long-term trends in political organisation, culture and environmental changes.
Comprehensive yet readable ... It will serve the needs of both experts in Vietnamese history and general readers interested in Vietnam.... Viet Nam's ability to integrate ecology into political, cultural and economic history is truly impressive. * Michael G. Vann, Asian Studies Review *
A major contribution to contemporary Southeast Asian scholarship... a sympathetic study of a tenacious and capable people. * Robin Gerster, Australian Book Review *
This is a remarkably evocative, multifaceted, sophisticated, and original study not only of those groups who haltingly coalesced as Vietnamese, but also of the many peoples with whom they interacted, and indeed of an entire region during two millennia. This book, I suspect, will become a classic in Asian as well as Southeast Asian historiography. * Victor Lieberman, University of Michigan *
An audacious book, Kiernan's Viet Nam presents the country's long history to new, global audiences, eloquently showing how the deep past continues to shape and inform the present. * David Biggs, author of Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta *
This outstanding book shows that 'Viet Nam has always been much more than a war.' By making his themes the perennial continuities and changes in the vital ecologies and polyethnic cultures of the country, Ben Kiernan tells a story of shifting layers that is lucid and rich. His work is a kaleidoscope of Vietnamese history. * Greg Lockhart, author of Nation in Arms: the Origins of the People's Army of Vietnam *
Kiernan offers a comprehensive overview of Vietnamese history from prehistoric times to the 21st century ... A distinctive quality of this work is its inclusion of environmental and linguistic history. The author effectively explains how geography and changing weather patterns (droughts, etc.) impacted historical development and demonstrates how changes in language over time provides information about Vietnam's past ... Essential for all students of Vietnamese history. Extensive descriptions of Vietnam's relations with its neighbors also make this valuable reading for those interested in Chinese or Southeast Asian history. * Library Journal *



Book Information
ISBN 9780195160765
Author Ben Kiernan
Format Hardback
Page Count 656
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 1069g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 173mm * 42mm