The birth of vietnam ebook

Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Vietnamese history prior to the tenth century has often been treated as a branch of Chinese history, but the Vietnamese side of the story can no longer be ignored.

In this volume Keith Taylor draws on both Chinese and Vietnamese sources to provide a balanced view of the early history of Vietnam. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Published April 24th by University of California Press first published More Details Original Title.

Other Editions 3. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Birth of Vietnam , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Birth of Vietnam. Apr 13, Nick rated it liked it.

In my youth, when I questioned whether the Viet Nam war was doing any good, people frequently responded by talking about the domino theory — as goes Viet Nam, there go the neighboring countriesm none of which they could name. Now I have Vietnamese friends who had to flee the current regime, and I hold a more nuanced view of the war. Of course, it was not then published, but In my youth, when I questioned whether the Viet Nam war was doing any good, people frequently responded by talking about the domino theory — as goes Viet Nam, there go the neighboring countriesm none of which they could name.

Of course, it was not then published, but surely policymakers could have profited by understanding that the Vietnamese never had any intention of becoming Chinese puppets. After all, the Vietnamese remember the millennium during which a succession of dynasties tried and mostly succeeded in making portions of Viet Nam into a province of the Chinese empire.

That millennium, chronicled in this book, started with the local kings and some wonderfully entertaining spirit characters—a thousand year old chicken and a gold turtle who gives a claw to a king to be used as a trigger for a crossbow. There is little of that mythic quality in what follows, which can be described best as a series of battles between native Vietnamese and Chinese outsiders, with Chinese-Vietnamese generally caught in the middle, in which the losers usually and literally forfeited their heads.

Toward the end, in the person of Bo Linh, who definitively freed Viet Nam from the Chinese for two centuries, some of that mythic quality returns—an otter forefather, a magical horse at the bottom of a lake.

The book ends with a passage that I wish had been available in the sixties. When the North is weak, then we are strong, and when the North is strong, then we become weak; that is how things are.

This being so, those who lead the country must train soldiers, repair transport, be prepared for surprise attacks, set up obstacles to defend the borders, use the ideas of a large country with the warriors of a small country. The book surveys the early history of Vietnam from the 2nd century B.

Although I'm a Vietnamese, a vast majority of the content is completely new to me. In fact, this period in Vietnamese history has not been well understood, due to the lack of reliable resources. This book uses a great deal of records, documents and myths to build a coherent narrative. Many parts of the story are quite speculative based on wild guess, but we can take it as a tentative solution to missi The book surveys the early history of Vietnam from the 2nd century B.

Many parts of the story are quite speculative based on wild guess, but we can take it as a tentative solution to missing evidences. The method that the author conveyed and analyzed history was innovative at the time the book was published. Vietnamese history was told in mutual interaction with concurrent situation in China. The author paired the two countries' histories to give readers a complete view on historical events.

With that objectivity, the book is both a story-teller and a research text. Not only did I learn the early Vietnamese history, my perception of the origin of my country has changed so much. I'm also grateful to the translators for their Vietnamese translation of the book which I enjoyed reading.

Want to Read. Download for print-disabled. Check nearby libraries Library. Share this book Facebook. Last edited by ImportBot. January 23, History. An edition of The birth of Vietnam This edition was published in Berkeley. Subjects History , Vietnam, history. Hardcover in English - Reprint edition. Not in Library. Libraries near you: WorldCat. The birth of Vietnam , University of California Press.

The birth of Vietnam Publisher unknown. Places Vietnam. Times To Edition Notes Revision of thesis Ph. Classifications Library of Congress DS T39 The Physical Object Pagination xxi, p.

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