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A review by nghia
Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present by Ben Kiernan
3.0
There are very few books on the history of Vietnam. As far I can tell there are 3. This one. One by Goscha and one by Taylor. I've read all of them. This is the best of the three. It still isn't exactly amazing but it covers everything from prehistoric stuff to 2016.
It does a perfectly good job of covering the history of Vietnam but I give it 3-stars because I felt like it didn't explain the "why" of things very well at times. For instance "why" did the Viet seem to constantly crush the Cham and Khmer? "Why" were the various kings & their courts so incompetent over the course of hundreds of years. (Other courts elsewhere in the world dealt with political infighting, powerful non-royal families, and so on.)
Like virtually all history books it would be helped with more graphical aids. More maps, more charts, more lists, and so on.
It does a perfectly good job of covering the history of Vietnam but I give it 3-stars because I felt like it didn't explain the "why" of things very well at times. For instance "why" did the Viet seem to constantly crush the Cham and Khmer? "Why" were the various kings & their courts so incompetent over the course of hundreds of years. (Other courts elsewhere in the world dealt with political infighting, powerful non-royal families, and so on.)
Like virtually all history books it would be helped with more graphical aids. More maps, more charts, more lists, and so on.