Viet Nam, A Long History was written by Nguyen Khac Vien in French and first published in Vietnam in 1976. After that it was published in English, Russian, German and Spanish. Over the past 30 years, many Western readers have shown high appreciation of it. Vietnamese scholars have different attitudes towards the Nguyen Dynasty because the Nguyen Kings contributed great deals to the development of the nation. At the same time, they could be blamed for their narrow-minded policy of governance. Thus Nguyen Anh, the founding-king the dynasty, twice turned to foreign powers for support in his effort to suppress the progressive Tayson uprising led by Quang Trung. Nguyen Anh sent his son to France to seek military support. Then, Nguyen Anh sought cruel revenge on the participants in the Tayson uprising. Among Nguyen Anh's successors there were some who pursued a closed-door policy, opposing any idea of renovasion. Thus Vietnam remained backward and vulnerable to the invasion by French colonialists. As a consequence, Vietnam became colony of France for about 100 years ... Effectiverly, the Nguyen had ruled over Vietnam for 81 years(1802-1883). From 1883 to 1945 their rule was only nominal. They made significant contributions to the development to the country in some aspects. For examples, they fostered agriculture, organized reclaimation, built sea dykes, canals and drainage systems and introduced reasonable land distributions alottment mechanism and taxes ...