Christopher Goscha is one of the top specialists in the history of contemporary Vietnam. Each of his books is a confirmation of this fact, as well as a surprise, because each time it is a work that pushes a little further the level of knowledge and analysis concerning the history of Vietnam and French colonial Indochina and, for what concerns us here, the First Indochina War (1946–54). Goscha succeeds here in gathering a sum of new information through a thorough analysis of Vietnamese sources, putting them in comparison with the immense historiography, and offering a new analysis, stimulating and opening new horizons for researchers.
Another strength of this study is that, like all of Goscha's writings to date, it shows no mercy in its treatment of the various actors, refusing to come out in favor of the French or the Vietnamese; the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Soviet communists; or their Vietnamese,...
