Southeast Asia. Historical dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954): An international and interdisciplinary approach . By Christopher E. Goscha. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2011. Pp. 564. Maps, Photographs, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Historical dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954): An international and interdisciplinary approach By CHRISTOPHER E. GOSCHA Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2011. Pp. 564. Maps, Photographs, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi:10.1017/S0022463413000155 Christopher E. Goscha's Historical dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) is a landmark achievement. It expands the existing scholarly parameters of the conflict and provides a new model for what a historical dictionary can--and probably should --be. The entries--including people, concepts, events, places, agreements, and government entities--constitute the most thorough collection of information about the Indochina War assembled in any volume. Collectively they offer readers an authoritative and well-written narrative by one of the few scholars of Southeast Asian history who has the Western and Asian language skills to produce a work of this breadth. Why would a prominent historian renowned for his ground-breaking studies in Southeast Asian history select this format for his next project? And why would he write and publish a historical dictionary in an age when wiki-like encyclopedias are now possible on the Internet? The volume's subtitle--An international and interdisciplinary approach--answers these questions and conveys why this volume is so extraordinary. Goscha's dictionary fills the gap in available sources about the war. Not only is it the first English-language historical dictionary of a conflict commonly known in Vietnam War studies as 'the French war', it offers a comprehensive approach that transcends the narrow loci of works produced in France and Vietnam. As Goscha points out in his introduction, most French volumes are almost exclusively focused on the military exploits of the French Union Forces (as was Jacques Dalloz's 2006 Dictionnaire de la Guerre d'Indochine) while the Vietnamese sources evince a strongly pro-Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) bias (evident in the repeated use of terms such as 'ineluctable victory') at the expense of noncommunist historical actors. Goscha's dictionary contains entries about British, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and other important international figures absent in French and Vietnamese collections. Along with his entries on war, diplomacy, and politics are those that consider social structures, gender, economics, and, especially, cultural factors. He includes singers (Dinh Ngoc Lien), writers (Tran Dan), artists (Mai Van Hien), filmmakers (Khuong Me), philosophers (Tran Duc Thao), educators (Nguyen Van Chi), scientists (Nguyen-Phuoc Buu Hoi), religious leaders (Ho Thanh Bien), and other figures commonly marginalised or ignored in war dictionaries. In fact, Goscha highlights the arena of ideas nearly as much as he does the battlefield. For example, his entry on the ever intriguing Paul Mus, the French intellectual and outspoken critic of the war, is longer than that for Vo Nguyen Giap, the DRV's supreme military commander who oversaw its great victory at Dien Bien Phu. Goscha also offers numerous entries on fascinating figures who do not appear prominently, if at all, in English-language histories. Historical actors such as Ernst Frey--the Jewish Austrian communist who escaped Hitler's Anschluss by joining the French Foreign Legion and, later, crossed over to the Viet Minh as a military commander--receive as much attention as the most familiar names. And while I am impressed by the breadth of Goscha's topics, I admire his discipline in the contents of the entries. …