Since the end of the Vietnam conflict, there have been many books on the United States' involvement in Vietnam. But they have focused on the United States, not Vietnam. Few authors have concentrated on Vietnam itself; even fewer have studied what has happened in South Vietnam since the communist take-over. Vietnam Under Communism is devoted to this neglected subject.
Based on his own experiences, extensive use of primary and secondary sources, and interviews with Vietnamese refugees who lived under the new order, Nguyen Van Canh analyzes the contemporary political and administrative structure of Vietnam and its leaders, culture, education, economy, and foreign policy. Several chapters are devoted to the apparatus of repression--what the author calls Vietnam's bamboo gulag, the "re-education" camps that have swallowed up most of the leadership strata of South Vietnam. An important section details the fate of religious believers and churches since 1975.