When North Vietnamese troops occupied Saigon at the end of April 1975, their leaders in Hanoi faced the future with pride and confidence. Almost fifteen years later, the euphoria has given way to sober realism. Since the end of the war, the Communist regime has faced an almost uninterrupted series of difficulties including sluggish economic growth at home and a costly occupation of neighboring Cambodia. In this third and updated edition of a study which was originally published in 1980, William J. Duiker treats the fifteen years since the Communist takeover and attempts to reach a balanced appraisal of current conditions in Vietnam and their ultimate causes. Some of Hanoi's problems, he concludes, are self-inflicted while others stem from the historically deep political and cultural chasm dividing North and South. Duiker's insights and assessments will also be of particular interest to those concerned with American foreign policy and major issues in contemporary world politics.
