Viet Nam

Hữu Ngọc (1918–) is retired director of Việt Nam's foreign languages publishing house and editor of Vietnamese Studies, Hà Nội's semi-scholarly quarterly published since 1964. His Sunday newspaper columns remain reader favorites. During the past twenty years, Hữu Ngọc's lecture, "3,000 Years of Vietnamese History in One Hour," has entranced 20,000 foreign visitors to Việt Nam.

"Việt Nam offers a sweeping introduction to Vietnamese history and culture through a collection of essays selected from Wandering through Vietnamese Culture (2004 … [It] moves from the ancient to the colonial to the contemporary, runs the cultural gamut from village puppetry to classical opera, and details cultural, linguistic, regional, and biographical histories. It both promotes and creates the idea of a national culture, which Hữu Ngọc considers essential to Vietnam's past and future. Summing up: Essential." (CHOICE) "Hữu Ngọc is an engaging and brilliant writer, and the brevity of his vignettes are just enough to spark an interest in the topic for a reader unfamiliar with the material. Even scholars of Vietnam will find something to learn in this volume." (Pacific Affairs)