Ho Chi Minh

Rating:
Summary: a welcome addition to understanding Ho Chi Minh.
Review: 695 pages of valuable and well written research on Ho Chi Minh. For westerners this is a much needed book, dispelling many myths and providing great detail on this otherwise secretive leader of Vietnam. Although some publicity indicated it is the only biography on Ho Chi Minh and that isn't true, it far surpasses those of Charles Fenn and Jean lLcouture both written before the war in Vietnam ended in 1975. Of course a lot more information became available over time. It's just amazing how much of it the author found, some coming from France and Russian archives. Having just returned from a trip to Ha Noi where Ho is even more a symbol of the country then Washington is to us, it was good to find this newly published book to put a human face on the man still called Uncle Ho and revered by his people. For those interested in the facts of Ho Chi Minh's life rather then the propaganda put out by those who revere him and those who hate him, this is the book to read. Then draw your own conclusions.

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Summary: BEST EVER UNCLE HO BOOK WRITTEN BY BILL DUIKER
Review: All Viet-Nam war buffs MUST BUY this book from Amazon.Com. More detail about Ho Chi Minh is to be found in this three inch thick book than in any other every written about Uncle Ho. Don't drop it on your toe, and if you have a bad back, get someone else to carry it for you. Otherwise, it is really the perfect book!

Ho Chi Minh (not his birth name....like Lenin, he changed his name and is known by the changed, not the original name) is a study in how to go from very unimportant to very important in politics. A VERY shrewd dude. For instance, when Ho threw the French out of North Viet-Nam, he wanted (so the book tells us) to live in the palace of the French head of state (also formerly occupied by Bao Dai, the French puppet last crowned Emperor of Viet-Nam). But Ho didn't want to be known as a guy who lived in a palace, heading up, as he did, the people's socialist paradise north of the DMZ. Soooooo.....Ho moved into the Gardener's house on the big estate (i.e. slept there, and used the big palace for meetings, balls, etc. and also used the palace's gardens for walks, talks, and visits from heads of state and VIP's like Jane Fonda and the Berrigan brothers (Americans who visited him in 1968 and were feted in the Palace where he lived in the Gardener's house!).

Duiker's great book has great photos. Ho looked dorky as a young man in Paris trying to get an "in" with the French government, applying to be "their man" in Viet-Nam (as Gandhi also tried to be Queen Victoria's man in India after law school in London). The French turned Ho down, so he decided if he couldn't join 'em, he'd fight 'em, which is what he started to do in the post-WW I era.

Great stuff in this book about Ho's life in the USA. He jumped ship (where he worked in the ship kitchen) in Baltimore, lived there for a bit, then did the same in New York City and Boston, and who knows where else?

The book is great especially for scholarly types like me. It has 90 (yes, 90!) pages of end notes, and a 20 page index. Everything you want to know Ho is there. You just have to take time to read it all, or use the index carefully.

This is a terrific book. None previously published can equal it. People who give it less than a 5 star rating don't know what they are talking about (I'd give it 10 stars is Amazon.Com would let me, but their rating system tops out at 5 starts.) this book is bargain for $35. (Cheaper if you buy it from Amazon.Com.) Hurry up an buy it before total sell out occurs!

Rating:
Summary: Capturing Uncle Ho
Review: At times while tracing the life of Ho Chi Minh, William Duiker must have felt like the French security service in the 1930's. Even as a biographical subject, Ho remains elusive, difficult to grasp and hard to capture. Yet, this biography goes a long and powerful way in demystifying an extraordinarily complex figure.

Duiker makes a cogent case for Ho as a genuine revolutionary bent essentially on the independence of Vietnam. His contention that Ho was not simply a nationalist pragmatically using Marxist-Leninism is persuasive. Yet, it also appears tragically clear that Ho was willing to put his enormous influence behind a rapprochment with the U.S. in the late 40's. An opportunity to avoid the subsequent catastrophe for both sides was lost.

Perhaps the strongest portions of the book deal with Duiker's explication of Ho's extraordinary ability to perceive the consequences of the global political scene; his ability to divine both the long-term and short-term consequences to Vietnam of the actions of the major powers. Additionally, Duiker's book is very insightful regarding Ho's position within his own party. He was essentially a moderate who had to negotiate with radical hard-liner's. One could see him as a victim of the success of his own party.

If the book has a failing, that failing cannot be laid at the feet of the author. In reading about Ho, one cannot help but feel that an enormous amount of information will never be available--either because it no longer exists, because it does not serve the purposes of those with the information to release it or that, in the case of China for instance, it will never allow access to significant archival material. Consequently, in reading about Ho I had the sense that I would never know his complete story. (Virtually nothing exists apparently about his personal life in this book. I am sure that is partially related to the fact that Ho's life was the movement he created, but some of it is undoubtedly because that part of his life was intentionally kept out of view). Nonetheless, the book is painstakingly annotated and detailed, and Duiker undoubtedly knows his subject.

The final quibble I have with the book is that it seemed oddly sanitized of violence. After all, Ho's actions led to conflicts over 30 years leading to millions of deaths. No doubt the book could not dwell on the destructiveness of the two Indochinese wars. Nonetheless, the book should have given more time to the consequences of the sacrifices Ho seemed to eternally preach. (Coincidentally, on the evening I finished the book, I read an article in the New Yorker regarding the longest held American POW. It was a good reminder of the horror of the conflict.)

This book deserves the highest compliment: it raises so many more fascinating questions about Ho and Vietnam, not because they were not adequately addressed, but rather because a great subject well-documented is endlessly fascinating. Its too bad Mr. Duiker is not available for Q & A.

Rating:
Summary: Most reliable and balanced biography of Ho Chi Minh
Review: Dr. William Duiker's book is exceptional. A five-star book with an asterisk for special consideration. It is arguably the most reliable and balanced biography of Ho Chi Minh ever published. First of all, please note the book was dedicated "To the Vietnamese people," similar in many ways as to how Ho Chi Minh himself, amid critics, dedicated his life's work to the Vietnamese people. Regardless of how you feel about this important 20th century political leader, Duiker correctly places him from the most significant point of view -- that is to say, from the Vietnamese people's perspective first, and only then the world.

The biography beautifully melds historical gaps with hard facts. Anyone who was ever presented with such a dilemma would truly appreciate the genius with which the author was able to craft Ho Chi Minh's character and personality. Simply outstanding. Duiker does not deceive the reader into believing that his biography will answer all questions, but it does indeed illuminate one's understanding of how Ho Chi Minh operated and perhaps how he would have acted under different circumstances. A mysterious person becomes less mysterious, albeit not completely understood. As readers, we can't help but be grateful for the opportunity to learn and benefit from 30 years of research.

So impressive was Dr. Duiker's biography that we at Sonshi.com asked the author for an interview. He was open to any and all questions about Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh. From our experience, this is a mark of a true expert, someone who is on top of his or her field of study. Anyone who would like to learn more about Vietnam or Ho Chi Minh will certainly benefit from Duiker. In fact, anyone who is interested in how the 20th century was shaped should read this book, for Ho Chi Minh's influence was not relegated to only Indochina, but it was felt in the top industrialized nations as well.

We highly recommend William Duiker's Ho Chi Minh: A Life.

Rating:
Summary: Most reliable and balanced biography of Ho Chi Minh
Review: Dr. William Duiker's book is exceptional. A five-star book with an asterisk for special consideration. It is arguably the most reliable and balanced biography of Ho Chi Minh ever published. First of all, please note the book was dedicated "To the Vietnamese people," similar in many ways as to how Ho Chi Minh himself, amid critics, dedicated his life's work to the Vietnamese people. Regardless of how you feel about this important 20th century political leader, Duiker correctly places him from the most significant point of view -- that is to say, from the Vietnamese people's perspective first, and only then the world.

The biography beautifully melds historical gaps with hard facts. Anyone who was ever presented with such a dilemma would truly appreciate the genius with which the author was able to craft Ho Chi Minh's character and personality. Simply outstanding. Duiker does not deceive the reader into believing that his biography will answer all questions, but it does indeed illuminate one's understanding of how Ho Chi Minh operated and perhaps how he would have acted under different circumstances. A mysterious person becomes less mysterious, albeit not completely understood. As readers, we can't help but be grateful for the opportunity to learn and benefit from 30 years of research.

So impressive was Dr. Duiker's biography that we at Sonshi.com asked the author for an interview. He was open to any and all questions about Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh. From our experience, this is a mark of a true expert, someone who is on top of his or her field of study. Anyone who would like to learn more about Vietnam or Ho Chi Minh will certainly benefit from Duiker. In fact, anyone who is interested in how the 20th century was shaped should read this book, for Ho Chi Minh's influence was not relegated to only Indochina, but it was felt in the top industrialized nations as well.

We highly recommend William Duiker's Ho Chi Minh: A Life.

Rating:
Summary: A history of the most interesting leader of the century
Review: During the time when American involvement in Vietnam was at its' peak, my high school social studies class conducted a debate about Ho Chi Minh. One side argued that he was a nationalist who chose communism because it was the only way he could get the assistance he needed. The other side countered with the point that he was an international communist agent first and a nationalist second. Now, over three decades later and after having read this well-researched book, I still don't know. In reading the book and sifting through the details of his life, no definitive answer can be reached. It also seems clear that we will never know, which is unfortunate, because the difference was substantial.
On the side of his being a communist first there is the fact that he was a Comintern agent who spent many years of training in the Soviet Union, surviving the Stalinist purges. Only those whose loyalty was considered absolute tended to survive those years. However, he apparently was once arrested and in danger of being liquidated. On the side of being a nationalist first are the countless times when he pragmatically dealt with his enemies over the objections of his comrades. However, he always justified it as the first step in retrenchment a la Lenin and his New Economic Policy.
The primary reason for the involvement of the United States in Vietnam was the perception that he was an agent of the international communist conspiracy, hoping to expand their influence to include all of southeast Asia. However, if he had been perceived as a communist more in the mold of Tito of Yugoslavia, the successive U. S. administrations may have accepted his leadership. Certainly he gave them enough opportunities, having good relationships with some American OSS agents during the second world war. One does not have to think too hard to appreciate the difference that would have made in that area of the world.
Ho Chi Minh was one of the most amazing, well-traveled and culturally experienced leaders of this century. Until I read this book I had no idea that he had spent some time in the U.S., working as a steward on a ship so that he could travel and experience other cultures. His reasoning was that he needed to understand other cultures if he was to deal with them. To me, this is the strongest argument in favor of his being a nationalist first and a communist second. As his adventures are chronicled, you realize that this was a very idealistic man who held one idea uppermost in mind, namely independence for Vietnam. Traveling around the world by working as a menial and spending his few earnings to write independence literature does not seem to be the behavior of a communist agent.
Armed with hindsight, this book is sometimes difficult to read. He does try hard to avoid the heavy involvement of the United States and yet there is an inevitability to the escalation of the war. At times, the by now aged "Uncle Ho" becomes an iconic afterthought of the other leaders of North Vietnam as they aggressively pursue a war to the conclusion. In any case, he is one of the most interesting of the national leaders of the twentieth century and in this definitive biography you will find the description of his complex path to national icon, both on the positive and negative side. Definitely the most interesting biography I have read in the last few years.

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Summary: The best biography of Ho, but that's not saying much at all
Review: First, one should be very clear that there are really no other serious scholarly works on Ho. There are accounts by journalists and Vietnamese who knew Ho, but these are usually very shallow and involve little or no research.

This book is a good general introduction to Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese history, but lacks crucial insight into Ho's life after World War 2, which is very disappointing. Ho Chi Minh was a remarkable person if only for the number of languages he spoke (French, English, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese) and the breadth of his knowledge and experience. He is very unlike the grim, close-minded communist stereotype. Ho's globe-trotting life, however, makes the biographer's job tremendously difficult, as he frequently went from one corner of the world to another, often living in secrecy or in remote jungles with a small group of colleagues.

Conducting interviews with people who knew Ho and his colleagues is probably not possible today. Those still living who knew Ho would be very reluctant to speak candidly about him, especially with a stranger from overseas, now that he is such a politicized figure in Vietnam. And those willing to speak about him (usually derogatorily) are usually members of the Vietnamese diaspora who have an axe to grind.

Reading this book, you can really sense the difficulty of finding records of Ho's life in Russia, China and Vietnam. His life in France and Hong Kong is well researched, but there are gaping holes in the biography at the most critical junctures, especially after his return to Vietnam.

Ho's decision to return to Vietnam after over 30 years abroad is not explained. Nor is his relationship to important figures such as Stalin, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Also, the biography suffers from a rigid chronological structure, which is very confusing given Ho's complex life. Broader trends and patterns are rarely explained. Sometimes you feel the author is just trying to move you along to a period where he has done some research or has materials to draw upon.

I suppose it is most telling that the author often cites extremely unreliable Vietnamese propaganda and Ho's own autobiographies as the sole source for some aspects of Ho's life.

Well, I still believe this book is good, and I can't blame the author for not being able to spend a decade doing research in Vietnam, China and Russia to dig up scarce sources on Ho's life. Maybe Robert Caro will one day become interested in writing about Ho, and will spend 20 years researching his life, as he did with Lyndon Johnson's. Of course, he'd have to learn Chinese, Russian and Vietnamese along the way...

The sad fact is that Ho, like most figures in history will only be known in an incomplete way. It's so sad that we have complete biographies of the boring buffoons who are in power today, but are in the dark about much more interesting figures.

Rating:
Summary: Details, Details, Where's the Story?
Review: I came to this book very interested in knowing more about Ho and to see this period of history told from the perspective of a figure not normally viewed as a major player. Having previously read Paul Preston's biography of Franco (a long book), I was hoping this would be of similar quality (see my review of Preston's book). It's not.

This book is very detailed. As one of the other reviewers notes, there are specifics about all sorts of travels and meetings with all sorts of names, places, and times. But, nothing really ties these things together to make a story. It's so bad that I haven't finished the book and probably never will. So, why 2 stars instead of a total blast of 0 or 1 star? Because I do believe the author has been thorough and so this deserves some respect. I just wish there had been an editor or someone to help turn this into a story.

And the final plug: Preston's book about Franco is really good.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on a mysterious subject.
Review: I felt that this book is essential for a complete understanding of the Vietnam War. I make this statement even though the war is covered in minimum length. It is important that we understand the foundation before we examine the events of that point in history. This book is extremely well written and a joy to read. I believe that this biography will dispel much of the myth that surrounds him..not only in the Western hemisphere, but in Vietnam.

Rating:
Summary: Uncle Ho's Mask
Review: I have this theory about the state examinations in Confucian countries. The few who pass these grueling ordeals, which often take years of study at great expense, become autocrats. And those, who fail become revolutionaries. Nyugen Tat Thanh, or Ho Chi Minh or Nguyen Ai Quoc, never even sat for those examinations. According to William J. Duiker, in <em>Ho Chi Minh: A Life</em>, he was a pragmatist amongst Marxist-Leninists. In 577 pages of narrative, Duiker follows Ho all over French Indo-China, over the oceans, to France and across the Eurasian continent to the Soviet Union and China, until Uncle Ho returns to a liberated, yet embattled North Vietnam. Through multiple languages, more than a few aliases, 93 pages of notes, maps, and photographs, the question of who Ho is becomes a game of mirrors.

Remarkably, when Ho died, he was the only Vietnamese, whom most people in the world who knew anything about the southeast Asian country, could (and can) still identify. Not that his family was not famous in his central Vietnamese district, or that his performance at school was not excellent, but Ho spent most of his life in hiding, fleeing, using an alias, or in prison. He never ceased, though, being a nationalist, which is why Duiker does not call him an unprincipled opportunist, like some of Ho's enemies described him. At the end of the life, Ho told a young Party member, that he had become a Communist because the Communist party had earned his loyalty, unlike the French or other capitalists. On board a ship for Marseilles in 1911, he glimpsed images of privation and brutality in the colonial ports at which the vessel docked. Ho did not need to learn Lenin's theories, because he saw the proof before he had even read them. Later, when the Soviets welcomed him and schooled him, he repaid them by becoming a student of Lenin.

But Ho never followed Lenin's theories consistently, nor did he always obey Stalin's or Mao's frequent dogmatic shifts. At every point of his life, there was always some hack willing to accuse him of some unorthodox idea or action. Ho, however, had his charm and energy to impress the doubtful. Whrever he went, Paris or Hanoi, he always seemed an attractive and uniquely intelligent person. Beneath whatever mask Ho was wearing, there was a self-conscious man whose only mission began and ended with Vietnamese nationhood.

Ho knew many people in his lifetime, and he requested help from many governments in the name of his cause. Duiker spends some time and arguments about Ho's relationship with the United States. He dismisses those who argue, that if Washington had cultivated a better relationship with Ho, two decades of war would have been averted. He downplays Ho's influence, which waned greatly in the 1960s. But he then talks about Ho's loyalty to the Communists for giving him a forum for his cause. He misses a deeper point, that Ho, and his contemporaries and younger colleagues, probably shared this sense of loyalty, if not so consciously and articulately. The answer to the question of how these Vietnamese revolutionaries once emulated American ideals enough to draft a Declaration of Independence in 1945, but then fought a long, bitter war against the United States, is one of lost opportunities and misunderstandings. And, Duiker really does not answer that question, because he is too busy following Ho around the world.

Duiker'<em>s Ho Chi Minh: A Life</em> is very detailed and versatile. There are more insights into Vietnamese and Chinese culture, France during the inter-war years, Soviet Russia, and a lifetime of international party politics and diplomacy to keep me busy in dozens of follow-on books. But at times Ho just disappears from the narrative, or is plotting some maneuver while he lets the character take center stage. One can fully appreciate Ho's versatility and endurance, but most of what Duiker gives us is offical history. There are still gaps in the history, filled only with competing propaganda narratives. Like Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh is elusive.