A Brief History of Vietnam: Colonialism, War and Renewal: The Story of a Nation Transformed. By Bill Hayton.

• Date: 01 August 2023
• Author: Hoang, Vu Minh

A Brief History of Vietnam: Colonialism, War and Renewal: The Story of a Nation Transformed. By Bill Hayton. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2022. Softcover: 288pp.

Bill Hayton has produced a probable bestseller on Vietnamese history that is, in equal measure, impressive and frustrating. Impressive in that the entire history of Vietnam, from prehistoric times to the present day, is elegantly condensed into just under 300 pages, while also drawing on the latest scholarship by Vietnam specialists. Frustrating, however, in that it attempts to make such a complex history easily digestible for the curious holiday-goer or discerning expatriate and, at the same time, able to stand up to the scrutiny of the stern academic. In the end, it accomplishes as much as can be expected from such a mammoth task.

As Hayton readily admits in the Bibliography, A Brief History of Vietnam does not intend to make an original contribution to the literature on Vietnam. It relies almost entirely on secondary sources, mostly from Anglo-American academia. There are no groundbreaking discoveries unearthed from the archives or archaeological sites, nor detailed endnotes that pinpoint the author's sources for his many vignettes, which makes it difficult to assess the information using conventional academic methodology. Moreover, the central narrative of the book--Vietnam's history is not simply shaped by resistance to outsiders (particularly China) but, instead, is a product...