- China's ancient conquest of Vietnam and the millennia-long struggle of the Vietnamese for independence from their powerful neighbor to the north
- The reign of the Nguyen dynasty, the last dynasty to rule Vietnam, with its capital at the ancient city of Hue, today a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- The story of Ho Chi Minh, educated in France, who attended the Treaty of Versailles to advocate for independence and became Vietnam's first president after the French were defeated
- The country's miraculous emergence from three decades of war and how it has embarked on the path to becoming one of the world's fastest-growing economies today
Journalist Bill Hayton's accessible prose makes A Brief History of Vietnam an essential study of a complex culture at the heart of Southeast Asia--and the roots of its current economic dynamism.