| The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family | 
 enlarge | Author: Duong Van Mai Elliott
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy Used: $5.81
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 88827
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.8
ISBN: 0195137876
Dewey Decimal Number: 959
EAN: 9780195137873
ASIN: 0195137876
Publication Date: April 20, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Most books about Vietnam focus on the French who colonized it or the Americans who sought to "save" it. This combination of memoir and family history shows the Vietnamese "as they saw themselves as the central players in their own history." The author's perspective is particularly enlightening because her relatives, though unquestionably better-educated and better-off than the typical Vietnamese, made a variety of political and social choices over the course of the turbulent century she chronicles. Her great-grandfather was a mandarin and member of the imperial court; her father was a government official under French rule; her older sister married a Communist. Elliott herself enrolled in Georgetown's School of Foreign Service in 1960, married an American, and supported the U.S. crusade in Vietnam until her experiences interviewing Vietcong prisoners of war for a Rand Corporation study convinced her that the corrupt Saigon regime failed to offer a convincing alternative to Communism. Because she had family on both sides, Elliott's portrait of the war is subtler and less didactic than previous accounts by proponents of either ideology. Her prose is a bit formal and dense for the casual reader, but by telling her relatives' personal stories and explicating their culture's traditional values, her reflective narrative makes humanly complicated a history too often oversimplified. --Wendy Smith
Product Description
Duong Van Mai Elliott's The Sacred Willow, an extraordinary narrative woven from the lives of four generations of her own family, illuminates fascinating--and until now unexplored--strands of Vietnamese history. Beginning with her great-grandfather and continuing to the present, Mai Elliott traces her family's journey through a long era of tumultuous change. She tells of childhood hours in her grandmother's silk shop--and of hiding while French troops torched her village. She reveals the agonizing choices that split Vietnamese families: her eldest sister left their staunchly anti-communist home to join the Viet Minh and then spent months sleeping with her infant son in jungle camps, fearing air raids by day and tigers by night. And she follows several family members through the last, desperate hours of the fall of Saigon--including one nephew who tried to escape by grabbing the skid of a departing American helicopter. Based on family papers, interviews, and much other research, this is not simply an unforgettable family saga--it's a record of how the Vietnamese have experienced their times. Often haunting, often heartbreaking, and always mesmerizing, this book will forever change how we view the history of Vietnam and our own role in it.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Good Book! May 18, 2008
I highly recommend this book for all young 2nd generation Vietnamese-Americans, like myself, who want to learn about their family's culture and past. This book should be included in any Asian American Studies class or curriculum.
Well done, Mrs. Duong-Elliot! Thank you for writing such an insightful, moving and educational story about your family and Vietnam. Not only did I learn more about the Vietnamese people, but I learn more about who I am.
The Sacred Willow March 9, 2008
I bought this book prior to a vacation in Vietnam. This is painless history! Although the book is long (nearly 500 pages) and very heavy to carry on an airplane, it was worth it. I learned so much about the historical differences that led to the Vietnam war and the succeeding political situations. I feel really prepared now for this trip in terms of understanding the context for my travels both to Hanoi and to Saigon.
If you want to get an understanding of the history of this country from prior to the French occupancy to the Communist era, I would recommend this book.
 Must Read February 7, 2008
Mai's book is an excellent way for American readers to understand the Vietnam war as well as Vietnamese culture, especially how they have reacted to French colonization, the American war period and the difficult choices that had to made about who to side with. It's a unique and important book that's gripping and important.
Sacred Willow December 14, 2007
Excellent book for history buffs or Viet Nam veterans or anyone who knows someone who was in Viet Nam. This book explains a lot about the culture and people of Viet Nam. I highly recommend it.
great read May 15, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a great story of Vietnam and its evolution as a state. I found the author's detail and historical knowledge very rewarding. Anyone interested in the people culture of indochina should read this book.
rlk
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