Biographer Examines Life Of Major Vietnamese Leader
Nov. 13, 2000
University Park, Pa. --- A Penn State historian has written a major biography on Ho Chi Minh, one of the most important, prominent, and controversial political leaders of the 20th century, yet to many contemporary observers, he remains a shadowy figure.

"Ho Chi Minh: A Life" is the culmination of over two decades of extensive research carried out in five languages by Dr. William Duiker, the Liberal Arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies in Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts. "Ho Chi Minh: A Life" is published by Hyperion Books.

In this portrait of a man who went from a tiny village to a place on the world stage alongside the key players of our time: Joseph Stalin, Sun Yat-sen, Harry Truman, Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedong, and Lyndon Johnson, Duiker explores both the personal and political life of Ho Chi Minh. Born the son of a willfully poor and brilliant scholar, Ho Chi Minh spent his early years as an itinerant expatriate. Forced to leave French Indochina to escape arrest, he shipped out as a cook on a passenger steamer and traveled the globe.

Duiker follows him on these travels and tells of his years in the heady environment of London and Paris during and after WWI, where he supported himself in a variety of jobs all the while working to push the anti-colonialist cause among his comrades in international Communist circles.

The Penn State historian gives a detailed account of Ho's rise to leadership of the Vietnamese Communist movement, his years of travel (often in disguise) fomenting revolution, his imprisonments and narrow escapes from the French, and his phenomenal ability as the first president of his country to inspire and reconcile his often bitterly divided colleagues. Duiker recreates Ho's life with great detail and takes the reader through Ho's role in planning the battle of Dien Bien Phu and other crucial engagements. Although Ho died six years before the fall of Saigon and was sidelined by poor health in his later years, his influence was essential in creating the conditions that brought about the national reunification.

Writing this book was no easy task. Ho Chi Minh's activities over a lifetime of political involvement remain shrouded in mystery, and his inner motivations and achievements are widely debated. To his admirers, he was an inspirational leader who devoted his life to the cause of liberating oppressed peoples throughout the world. To his critics, he was a crafty agent of international Communism, an opportunist who disguised his totalitarian objectives under the benign exterior of a simple patriot. In this remarkably accessible and completely engrossing book, Duiker uses original documents which were previously unavailable to unravel the mystery of Ho Chi Minh and gives a balanced treatment of this controversial figure whose legacy continues to inspire and confound.

The leading scholar on the life of Ho Chi Minh, Duiker was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon as a foreign service officer in the mid-1960s and has spent nearly 30 years researching this book. He has travelled repeatedly to Vietnam over the last decade to obtain research materials and to interview some of the few living Vietnamese who knew Ho well. In 1997, he retired from the history department at Penn State and currently resides in North Carolina.

EDITORS: Dr. Duiker is at by email.

Vicki Fong 814-865-9481 (phone) 814-865-9421 (fax)