Since early 1990, Nguyễn Khuyến, editor-in-chief of Vietnam Weekly, an English newspaper of Việt Nam News Agency, asked me to write a series of articles for the column The Making of Vietnam, that introduce the history of Việt Nam to foreigners. As a result, I wrote an article every week until mid 1991. My articles covered a long period of Vietnamese history, but not the Nguyễn Dynasty. However, I had to bid farewell to this column because I was too busy at that time.
In 2000, Vietnam News asked me to reprint the series of articles in The Making of Vietnam for their Sunday issues. I had an opportunity to review all the articles and end the series with articles about the Tây Sơn Dynasty (1778-1802) until the mid 2001. I regret not having time and good health to write about the Nguyễn Dynasty so that the series would represent a complete panorama of Vietnamese history.
After reprinting the above-said series, many foreigners suggested to me to gather all the articles into a book. As a result, I decided to publish the book The Making of Vietnam to meet the demand of readers.
I offer my sincere thanks to those who helped me complete this book. They are Nguyễn Khuyến and Hà Vinh, who helped me with English translation; Nguyễn Hữu Thắng, Nguyễn Văn Kự, Ngô Quỳnh Dũng, who provided photos to illustrate the book; and Nguyễn Hồng Kiên who helped prepare the manuscript. I also give special thanks to my wife who encouraged and helped me a lot during my time working on the book.
We keep the texts intact as they were printed in the newspaper. Only place-names have been changed to their current names, when it is necessary.
Ngôn ngữ: tiếng Anh
Khổ sách: 14 x 20,5cm
Số trang: 308 trang
