A German specialist has launched a photo book on the history, culture, and urban development of Hanoi in Vietnamese, English, and his mother tongue.

Dr. Michael Waibel introduced his book titled “Hà Nội Capital City” during a launch ceremony at the Goethe-Institut in the Vietnamese capital city on Friday, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism said yesterday on its website.

The author is currently lecturing and doing research on urban development at the Institute of Geography under Hamburg University in Germany.

The book comes in a large size and its annotations are provided in Vietnamese, English, and German.

It features 600 photos which accentuate the capital’s millennium-old history, rich culture, and multifaceted lifestyle.

The photos include those offering aerial views of the city and close-ups of its age-old architectural and cultural icons.

The book also highlights the seamless combination between time-honored values and modernity, and underlines Hanoi’s and its residents’ striking changes over the course of time.

“Hà Nội Capital City,” which is Waibel’s second work on Vietnamese metropolises, also encompasses several writings by locals and reflects the challenges regarding sustainable development the capital and its residents have faced.

Early last year, Waibel worked with    Henning Hilbert, a lecturer at the Vietnamese-German University in Ho Chi Minh City, and 18 local and international photographers to publish his first photo book titled “TP. Hồ Chí Minh Mega City.”

This book, which showcases over 300 photos as well as diagrams, introductions, and annotations, sold well on the market.

The Friday book launch in Hanoi also saw the introduction of a revised edition of that book.

According to the Hanoi Goethe-Institut, the two pictorial books are the fruit of a Germany-sponsored extensive research starting in the 1990s which focused on Vietnamese cities’ sustainable urban development.

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