The following is a list of books and publications authored, edited or
translated by members of the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans.
Help NCVA by purchasing books and other products by using the links below.
Jackie Bong Wright
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Autumn Cloud: From Vietnamese
War Widow to American Activist
Le Thi Thu Van, whose first name translates as
Autumn Cloud, was born in 1940 in Cambodia, where
her affluent Vietnamese parents lived. She and her
large family, like millions of other southern
Vietnamese, were profoundly affected by the wars and
civil unrest that buffeted Southeast Asia for most
of the next four decades: the Japanese occupation
during World War II; the First Indochina War from
1945 to 1954, which ended with the humiliating
French defeat at Dien Bien Phu; and the American
war, which began incrementally in the mid-'50s,
peaked in the late-'60s and ended ingloriously with
the Communist victory in 1975. Le Thi Thu Van's
family suffered in many ways during these momentous
events. The family fortune was lost; one sister
abandoned the family to devote her life to the
Communist revolution; a brother was killed in the
American war; another brother did not survive the
Communist postwar "re-education" camps. The author
married a reform-minded South Vietnamese politician;
he was assassinated, probably by the Vietcong. She
was left with three young children. Le Thi Thu Van
tells three stories in this smoothly written
autobiography: her own, her family's and Vietnam's.
The most effective sections are the straightforward
depictions of the many and varied events of the
author's life and her explanations of Vietnamese
society and culture. The least successful are the
sketchy historical sections and the author's
staunchly anti-Communist analyses of the reasons
behind the American defeat. Overall, though, the
author shows very well how Le Thi Thu Van went from
"being an innocent girl to a sophisticated wife, an
unexpected widow, and finally a professional woman,"
known on three continents as Jackie Bong Wright. |
Bui Diem
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Vietnamese
Economy and Its Transformation to an Open Market
System
Incorporating current research
and extensive technical analysis by leading
economists from both the United States and Vietnam,
this collection of original papers seeks to clarify
what further steps are needed so that Vietnam can
flourish. It analyzes the dramatic transformation of
Vietnam's economy during the 1990s and its prospects
for the future as the pace of reform has slowed. The
three main sections of the book discuss Vietnam's
turbulent history, recent economic reforms, and the
country'e emerging role in the world economy and
geopolitics. Individual chapters examine a myriad of
issues, including specific reforms in agriculture,
banking, and tax policy, as well as the attempts to
create a business-oriented legal structure, the
development of foreign trade and a viable balance of
payments, and U.S. policy reactions to Vietnam's
development in the last decade. |
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In the Jaws of
History
Active in the Vietnamese nationalist movement, the
nephew of Emperor Bao Dai's short-termed prime
minister Tran Trong Kim, founder of the Saigon Post
, and ultimately South Vietnam's ambassador to the
United States, Bui Diem was both a participant in
and observer of the post-World War II struggles of
Vietnam. Though well written and at times
illuminating, his perspective is seldom
self-critical and often reveals how detached he was
from the decision-making process. This may not be
the most satisfying historical expose but it does
serve to illustrate his central point: that when the
Americans sent in troops they took over the war,
exhibiting a blatant disregard of South Vietnamese
interests (culminating in the forced acceptance of
the Paris Accords). |
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Vietnam as
History: Ten Years after the Paris Peace Accords
A compact authoritative "Vietnam reader" featuring
work by some of the best scholars who are now
re-examining the war. Contributors to the volume
include Richard Betts, Larry Berman, Douglas
Blaufarb, Herbert Y. Schandler, Paul Miles, Edwin
Simmons, Richard Hunt, George C. Herring, Peter
Rodman, Stanley Falk, Bui Diem, Douglas Pike,
Stanley Karnow, Alan Gropman, Allan E. Goodman,
Vincent Demma, Samuel Popkin, Harry G. Summers, Jr.,
Russell F. Weigley, Robert E. Osgood, John Mueller,
Lawrence W. Lichty and others. Co-published with The
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. |
Nguyen Manh Hung
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Vietnam: Facing
the Challenge of Integration
This article presents a review of major developments
in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 2003. It
assesses the efforts of the Vietnamese authorities
to combat corruption, reform the economy, and join
the World Trade Organization in 2005. Obstacles to
rapid economic growth and economic integration are
identified. The governments treatment of religious
and political dissidents and its response to
international criticism are also examined. The
chapter analyzes Vietnam's defense strategy in the
new stages of development, its diplomatic activities
aimed at maintaining an international environment
favorable to national reconstruction and defense,
and a number of important steps taken by Vietnam to
build a framework for a stable and long-term
partnership with the United States. |
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Dynamic Timing
Decisions Under Uncertainty: Essays on Invention,
Innovation, and Exploration in Resource Economics |
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Indochina in the
1940s and 1950s: Translation of Contemporary
Japanese Scholarship on Southeast Asia
This book is a
collection of six translated essays written by the
third generation of Japanese Southeast Asianists.
While the first four essays are based on Japanese
sources and deal with Japan's wartime policy toward
Indochina, the last two are based on archival
research in Hanoi and deal with policies of the
Vietnamese Communists toward Cambodia and Laos in
the early fifties and toward dissident writers in
the 1956-58 period. |
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Indochine: La
Colonisation Ambigue, 1858-1954
This book does not
reveal anything new, but provides a more complete
analysis of the period by treating the process of
French colonization of Indochina in "a plurality of
dimensions" - political, military, economic, social
and cultural - and by building its analysis on the
"current state of knowledge" based not only on
French sources, some of which were recently made
available, but also those written by Americans and
Vietnamese, including non-Communist Vietnamese. The
authors' translations of Vietnamese terms are
excellent, but they also indulge in an annoying
habit of substituting the letter z for d (for
example, Dong Zu instead of the correct spelling of
Dong Du [p. 228], quoc zan instead of quoc dan [p.
284], etc. |
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Vietnam's Foreign
Relations: Dynamics of Change
This monograph is an
expanded and updated version of a paper presented at
the workshop on Major Asian Powers and the Security
of Southeast Asia, held in Singapore in December
1990. The monograph was completed in November 1992,
fourteen months before the full lifting of the U.S.
economic embargo against Vietnam. Since the author
seemed to have viewed the American embargo as a
major obstacle to Vietnam's multi-directional
foreign policy and its economic reform (pp. 2, 41,
77), the readers will certainly miss an opportunity
to see how the author would reconcile his prognosis
with the realities of Vietnam's economic reform and
foreign relations in the post-embargo era. |
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Vietnamese
Refugee Scholars and Vietnamese Studies in the
United States, 1975-1982 |
Nguyen Ngoc Bich
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From Enemy to
Friend: A North Vietnamese Perspective on the War
(Translator)
Introduction by James Webb. In a question and answer
format that simulates an in-depth interview, Bui
Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese Army
shares his insights into many aspects of the Vietnam
War. Once a presidential palace guard for Ho Chi
Minh and a participant in the decisive battle of the
French-Indochina War at Dien Bien Phu, he later
served as a frontline commander and war
correspondent in the fighting against the United
States. In 1973 Colonel Tin was an official
spokesman for the North Vietnamese delegation that
arranged the return of American POWs and rode a tank
onto the presidential palace grounds in Saigon to
accept the South Vietnamese surrender. In September
1990, he left Vietnam to reside in Paris, where he
has become a leading critic of the Hanoi leadership.
Believing that a dialogue between old enemies is
both desirable and necessary for the well being of
the two nations, Bui Tin is open-minded and candid
in his views about the policies and operations of
the Vietnamese and U.S. governments. In the book he
addresses such matters as the performance of U.S.
military forces, varying strategies that might have
yielded different outcomes, and the degree of
involvement by the Soviet Union and Communist China
along with a thought-provoking analysis of the long
struggle that eventually brought his side victory
but, ultimately, personal disappointment and
alienation. To enhance the dialogue, some of his
views are supported and others are challenged in a
stimulating foreword by the Emmy Award-winning
writer, former secretary of the Navy, and outspoken
Vietnam War hero, James Webb. The result is a book
that offers a rare glimpse into the mind of an enemy
we never fully understood.
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An Ocean
Apart/Nghin Trung Xa Cach: Contemporary Vietnamese
Art from the United States and Vietnam/My Thuat
Duong Dai Viet Nam o Hoa Ky va o Viet Nam
(Translator)
Published in conjunction with an exhibit of the same
name--a joint venture by Vietnamese and
Vietnamese-American artists--which opened at the
Smithsonian Institution in 1995 and will travel
through 1998. Hantover's introductory essay is
presented in both English and Vietnamese, as are the
captions and brief interviews with artists that
accompany display (in color) of 78 works by 34
artists. |
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A Thousand Years
of Vietnamese Poetry
This English translation features more than 100 folk
poems and the contemporary works of popular
Vietnamese poets.
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