| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. By Arthur J. Dommen. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. xvi, 1,172 pp. $49.95, ISBN 0-253-33854-9.)

Is there a place for "revisionist" analyses of Vietnamese nationalism, that is, ones that do not portray Ho Chi Minh as more nationalist than Communist or that question broad Vietnamese support for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) or its southern allies? Certainly. Does Arthur J. Dommen's lengthy (1,172-page) survey (through the 1990s) do this? Questionably. Dommen's reluctance to consider conflicting interpretations and evidence, his indulgence in polemical remarks, and his highly partisan arguments undermine his credibility. One comes away convinced that, before any major syntheses, we first need more focused histories in the manner of David Marr's 1995 study of 1945 or Stein Tønnesson's 1991 examination of 1946.

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