The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam

by Christopher Goscha

At the battle of Dien Bien Phu (March-May 1954) Vietnamese forces defeated the French in a pitched battle, paving the way for the colonial power’s departure from Vietnam a few months later. Christopher Goscha, a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, looks at how, from almost nothing in 1945, Ho Chi Minh managed to build up the Viet Minh army.