William J. Duiker is Liberal Arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. He was a member of the History Department at Penn State until his retirement in the spring of 1997. A former foreign service officer with posts in Taiwan and South Vietnam, he currently specializes in the history of modern Vietnam and China. He was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the spring of 1996.

Professor Duiker has written several books and articles on subjects related to modern China and Vietnam. HisThe Communist Road to Power in Vietnam (Westview, 1981) received a Choice Outstanding Book Award for 1982-1983, and a second award when it was published in a second edition in 1996. Other books includeU.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina (Stanford, 1994) andSacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam (McGraw-Hill, 1995). In recent years he has developed a strong interest in world history and with colleague Jackson Spielvogel published a textbook entitledWorld History (West, 1994), a third edition of which appeared in the fall of 2000.

While at Penn State, he served as chairman of the East Asian Studies Program, as well as director of International Programs in the College of Liberal Arts. He is currently a regular lecturer for the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C., and lives on the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

The magisterial and authoritative biography of one of the towering and mysterious figures of the twentieth century. Ho Chi Minh's epic life helped shape the twentieth century. But never before has he been the subject of a major biography. Now William Duiker has compiled an astonishing work of history that fills this immense void. A New York Times Notable Book and one of the Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2000 -- now in paperback!