Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews March 25, 2024 March 18, 2024
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Vietnam gains independence from China
China launches new invasion of Vietnam but is driven back
China reinvades Vietnam, this time successfully
Vietnamese finally drive Chinese out
Vietnam is divided between Trinh in north, Nguyen in south
French invade Vietnam
French establish protectorate of Cochin China
French merge Vietnam and Cambodia to form French Indochina
French add Laos to their territory of French Indochina
For more than a thousand years, until the middle of the tenth century, the region we today call Vietnam lived under the rule of imperial China, first under the Han dynasty and then under the T’ang dynasty. Throughout this millennium of Chinese domination, the Vietnamese people nonetheless maintained a sense of cultural independence. They even managed several fierce revolts, although these rebellions were intermittent and never met with success.
Although Vietnam gained independence from China in 939, Chinese rule returned under the Ming dynasty, and Vietnam did not become truly independent until the 1400s, when the Chinese empire weakened. By the 1600s, Vietnam was divided between two powerful families. The Trinh controlled northern Vietnam, with a capital at Hanoi. The Nguyen controlled the south, including the fertile Mekong River delta, and maintained a capital at Hue.
In 1858, as European powers were scrambling to outdo one another in imperial wealth and power, France invaded Vietnam. After forcing a peace treaty in 1862, the French established a colonial government for Vietnam in the form of a protectorate that the French called Cochin China. Bypassing the traditional capitals of Hanoi and Hue, they instead established a colonial capital at Saigon, in the south of Vietnam. In 1883, France added the more northerly regions of Tonkin and Annam to its imperial holdings, and in 1893 combined all their Vietnamese and Cambodian protectorates with the territory of Laos to form French Indochina.
Because Vietnam was controlled by other nations for so much of its history, it had a long, violent tradition of fighting against imperial overlords. These conflicts often lasted for generations, but in the end Vietnamese resolve always overcame the patience and resources of conquering powers. With a long heritage of resistance, many twentieth-century Vietnamese were prepared to fight against more powerful nations, even if it took decades and exacted a high cost in human lives.
Although much is made of the divide during the Vietnam War between U.S.-backed South Vietnam and Soviet-backed North Vietnam, this north-south split actually went back centuries, to the divide between the northern Trinh family and southern Nguyen family in the 1600s. During Vietnam’s periods of independence since that time, its northern and southern halves frequently faced each other in a kind of civil war. The split between the communist North and U.S.-backed South that began in the 1950s was therefore not purely a result of the United States and USSR carving out spheres of influence—it was also an echo of a cultural division that had persisted for generations.
Although Vietnam fought the Chinese and the French, it also received profound cultural influences from them. The centuries of Chinese rule, for instance, brought several varieties of Buddhism that the Vietnamese adopted widely. Furthermore, the influx of the French in the late 1800s brought elements of Western society, many of which Vietnamese culture had absorbed by the 1950s. Many Vietnamese elites attended Western-style schools, spoke French more comfortably than Vietnamese, and were Catholic. Many had also spent time in Europe, where they were exposed to even more Western cultural influences than were present in Vietnam.
Please wait while we process your payment