Travel to Vietnam

Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam

Format: Paperback
Author: Robert Templer
ReleaseDate: 01 September, 1999
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Rating:

Contemporary Look At Vietnam
Anyway, after my first trip to Vietnam I read Stanley Karnow's excellent history, Vietnam, which focuses on the cuses of the war and the aftermath and I felt this might be a follow up of sorts, picking up where Karnow left off. While in Vietnam I picked up an interesting book about contemporary Vietnam called Shadows and Wind by Robert Templer. It's not as contemporary as I'd like-it was published in 1998, but the author has interesting insights to make about the myth of Vietnam, the culture, the generation gap, food, politics, Viet Kieu (exiled or refugee Vietnamese), religion, and everyday life. Albeit the chapters on politics were long and difficult to get through-they came in the middle of the book, which seemed to slow me in my progress. However, I found the opening and closing chapters the most interesting and informative about contemporary Vietnamese society and from what I saw on my last trip to Hanoi-it is still fairly accurate. The Vietnamese are slowing making their way to the usual global consumerism with their pursuit of Honda Dream motorcycles, cell phones, and other consumer goods, but the governement has kept economic expansion moving at a trickle compared to other countries. More than half of the population was born after the war and no one ever gave me grief because I was an American. It'll be interesting to see whether or not Vietnam develops an economic model like China.

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One of Two Great books on Vietnam!
Graham recommended it in his book The Bamboo Chest, and why there are so many who've read both The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War and Shadows And Wind and consider them the two best books on Vietnam in recent years. I read this book because it was recommended in the back of my favorite book on Vietnam: The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War

After reading this book I can understand why Mr. As a Vietnamese-American I can definitely attest to the both authors' understanding of the topic of Vietnam: one author gained his through living and reporting on Vietnam for three years, and the other through living in Vietnam during the worst years of the War, and spending eleven months in a re-education camp, just like my uncle!

Get The Bamboo Chest and Shadows and Wind and you'll have a complete understanding of Vietnam and its people!.

Get the facts behind the headlines!
Both of them stories that have never been told by any other writers who appear only to be regurgitating the findings of previous writers many of them long since dead. This book and memoir "The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War" by Frederick "Cork Graham are the best books on Vietnam that my reading club and I have read in the last ten years. If you really want to know what is behind the veil of secrecy in Vietnam then these "Shadows and Wind" and "The Bamboo Chest" are the books for you! Both are written by authors who spent more than a year in Vietnam. Graham spent eleven months as the first american political prisoner held in that country since the end of outright fighting.

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