Letting Vietnam Tell Its Own Story
You could fill a library with books in English on “Vietnam.” But the vast majority might tell the reader very little about the land, people and country known today as Việt Nam. Instead, you would learn about Americans and the tragic war they fought in a far-off place they understood very little about.
Yale University history professor Ben Kiernan puts Vietnam back in the center of its own story. He paints a giant canvas stretching to prehistoric times, and weaves in environmental changes right up to today’s climate crisis (if there is a central theme in this sweeping book, it would be water’s role Vietnamese history and identity). Kiernan balances the distinct regional elements, exploring the rise and fall of the
Hindu Cham Kingdom as inseparable from a history that inevitably favors its northern rival state, Đại Việt. The inward focus can leave gaps: There is relatively little on the Vietnam policy and strategy debates in Beijing during its long era of imperial influence, as well as Paris during France’s shorter stint as colonial occupier. That changes during the American War; Kiernan relies heavily on declassified CIA histories to reconstruct developments in the South. He ends with post-war Vietnam’s shift from militancy to economic dynamism. In light of millennia of history, the reader can appreciate how Hanoi will tread into the future of great power rivalry with profound caution.
Yale history professor Ben Kiernan puts Vietnam back in the center of its own story.