Boudarel, Georges and Nguyen Van Ky. Hanoi: City of the Rising Dragon. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002.

For many Westerners, Hanoi evokes memories only of war and bitter loss. But Hanoi is much more than the capital of Vietnamese communism. Ancient seat of the royal house, then center of the French colonial empire in Indochina, and finally birthplace of Vietnamese independence, Hanoi is today a thriving urban center with a rich history all its own. Georges Boudarel and Nguyen Van Ky paint a vivid portrait of a city that is now awakening to the modern era. Together they reveal Hanoi in its myriad facets, from the aromas of its traditional cuisine to its destruction in wartime to the modern era of motorcycles and movie theaters. Part history, part paean, this book takes us into the heart of a city just emerging from the storms of the twentieth century.

Burke, J. Wills. Origines: The Streets of Vietnam, a Historical Companion. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2001.

With nearly every street in Vietnam reflecting an important event, person or even product, one takes a tour of history and culture when traveling any of the streets of the country. Origines is not written for any one audience in mind. Instead, it is meant for visitors of the country to appreciate street names and their references to prevent one from overlooking any of the relevant meanings that go into naming the streets.

Ngoc, Huu. Sketches for a Portrait of Hanoi. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 1997.

A true portrait of Hanoi, a majestic city, as it nears its 1000-year anniversary. The book is filled with historical and cultural information and includes hundreds of beautiful and informative photographs that accompany the illuminating editorials.

Phuc, Nguyen Vinh. Ha Noi: Past and Present, 2nd ed. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2004.

This book provides an in-depth look at the long history of Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital. In addition to exploring the city’s development, it introduces the reader to various aspects of Vietnamese culture, including folk festivals, historic sites, literature, and cuisine.

Phuc, Nguyen Vinh. Historical and Cultural Sites Around Hanoi. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2000.

This booklet introduces pagodas and temples famous for their festivals, rites and customs located within 60 km of Hanoi.

Sheehan, Neil. After the War Was Over: Hanoi and Saigon. New York: Random House, 1992.

Sheehan, who covered the Vietnam War for the New York Times, is the author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning A Bright Shining Lie. He returned to Vietnam and in this book describes what the wartime capitals of Hanoi and Saigon were like nearly two decades later.  Sheehan talks to the soldiers and politicians who won the war for the North and is deluged with memories as he tracks down former acquaintances in the South.

Sheehan, Neil. Two Cities: Hanoi and Saigon. London: Picador and Jonathan Cape, 1994.

Tana, Li. Peasants on the Move: Rural-Urban Migration in the Hanoi Region. Singapore: ISEAS, 1996.

Almost all developing countries are plagued by the problem of peasants crowding into cities in search of a better life. For scholars of and visitors to Vietnam, it is increasingly clear that the problem has also arrived in this recently freed socialist economy. Is it going to get worse before it gets better? What is officialdom’s response to the social disruptions and friction it causes?
This book is one of a few surveys of this urban drift, and provides empirical data on the spontaneous migration to Hanoi from its rural environs. It provides a picture of the migration pattern, the lifestyle of migrants in the city, the institutional changes that have been energized by this movement, and its many political and socio-economic implications.

The Temple of Literature: A Walking Tour. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2004.

This guide book introduces visitors to the Van Mieu, or The Temple of Literature, one of the foremost architectural treasures of Vietnam's capital city, Hanoi.

Vien, Nguyen Khac, ed. From Saigon To Ho Chi Minh City: A Path of 300 Years. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 1998.

Topics in this book include old Saigon, the period of the French Conquest-1930, the Revolutionary Upsurge 1930-1945, Saigon through the Indochina Wars (1945-1975), Ho Chi Minh City from 1975-1990s, and a 300-year chronology of Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City.

Video and Film Resources

Cyclo (1995)

Cyclo is a survey of a society in decay. In the heart of Ho Chi Minh City,  “Cyclo”, a poor urban teenager, transports anonymous passengers through the teeming streets on his bicycle taxi, trying to eke out a meager living for his two sisters and elderly grandfather. When his bicycle is stolen by a local gang, he descends into the underbelly of this corrupt and violent city. Seduced by easy money, Cyclo is swept deeper into the crime ring lead by the quietly charismatic Poet, the son of an upper-class family who has drifted into pimping and fencing--wartime rackets still thriving in the new Vietnam.

Destination Vietnam (2004)

Traveler Justine Shapiro starts her journey by celebrating the New Year at the Tet Festival in Ho Chi Minh City.  From there she ventures up the coast taking in the unspoiled beaches of Lang Co and the city of Hue.  After a bicycle tour of the capital Hanoi, she ends her journey in the remote highlands near the Chinese border.

My Hanoi(2001)

A part of the “City Life” series that examines the effects of globalization, this is the story of Tran Thuy Linh, whose family has lived in the flower village area of Hanoi for generations, but now must move. Thuy describes the extended family she grew up with in the flower village, and charts the stories of their lives against the backdrop of the changing skyline of the city. Seen through Thuy's eyes, the program profiles a city in a period of dramatic change -- emerging from colonialism and the still painful memory of the Vietnam War, through socialism to the current free market era where a younger generation is asserting itself as a force for change.

Three Seasons (1999)

It is the new Vietnam.  The beautiful old city of Saigon is quickly fading into the neon glare of Western progress, leaving four ordinary people as expatriates in their own country.  The young Kien An is a living memory of the old ways.  Hired to pick white lotuses for a reclusive ex-poet, her singing reminds him of his youth and inspires him to write again.  In the center of the city, Hai, a cyclo driver, enters a race with the hope of winning fifty dollars to spend an evening with an ambitious prostitute he has fallen for.  Meanwhile, a street urchin, Woody, who sells trinkets from a suitcase hanging around his neck, meets James Hager (Harvey Keitel), an ex-G.I. searching for the daughter he left behind in the war.  These haunting stories merge to paint a portrait of a country in transition…a culture which, through a second invasion by its former enemy, will never be the same.

Internet Resources

Vietnam Landscapes – Hanoi
http://www.vietscape.com/travel/hanoi/index.html

Vietnam Index (including images of Hanoi)
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/vietnam/vietnamindex.html

Images of Hanoi
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/5111/?200619

Sustainable Cities Initiative – Prospectus on Hanoi
http://www.nrtee-trnee.ca/eng/programs/ArchivedPrograms/Sustainable_Cities/hanoi_vietnam_city_profile.htm

World Resources Institute – Partnership for Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia http://embarq.wri.org/en/ProjectCitiesDetail.aspx?id=8