This definitive and thorough exploration of the causes and course of the Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945 provides new insights from hitherto unexploited archival sources. The strength of the book lies in encompassing the history of the Vietnamese Revolution in discussions of broader theoretical issues and in placing it within the context of international developments at the time. Two causal chains are established, one starting with the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930, the other with President Roosevelt′s intense preoccupation from 1943 to 1945 with the future of French Indochina.