革命, Cách Mạng, Révolution: The early history of ‘revolution’ in Việt Nam

This article traces the etymology of the term ‘revolution’ as it developed in Việt Nam between the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. It argues that the term was slow to catch on, and that activists who used it did so in often contradictory ways. The term's historical development complicated efforts to fix its meaning, and it was not until the later part of the 1920s that it came to be consolidated, in part through Hồ Chí Minh's publication of a short book entitled Đường Kách Mệnh (The road to revolution).