Sources of Vietnamese Tradition (Introduction to Asian Civilizations)
See all 3 imagesSources of Vietnamese Tradition (Introduction to Asian Civilizations)Paperback – August 28, 2012
by George Dutton (Editor), Jayne Werner (Editor), & 1 more
4.7 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews
Sources of Vietnamese Tradition provides an essential guide to two thousand years of Vietnamese history and a comprehensive overview of the society and state of Vietnam. Strategic selections illuminate key figures, issues, and events while building a thematic portrait of the country's developing territory, politics, culture, and relations with neighbors. The volume showcases Vietnam's remarkable independence in the face of Chinese and other external pressures and respects the complexity of the Vietnamese experience both past and present.
The anthology begins with selections that cover more than a millennium of Chinese dominance over Vietnam (111 B.C.E.–939 C.E.) and follows with texts that illuminate four centuries of independence ensured by the Ly, Tran, and Ho dynasties (1009–1407). The earlier cultivation of Buddhism and Southeast Asian political practices by the monarchy gave way to two centuries of Confucian influence and bureaucratic governance (1407–1600), based on Chinese models, and three centuries of political competition between the north and the south, resolving in the latter's favor (1600–1885). Concluding with the colonial era and the modern age, the volume recounts the ravages of war and the creation of a united, independent Vietnam in 1975. Each chapter features readings that reveal the views, customs, outside influences on, and religious and philosophical beliefs of a rapidly changing people and culture. Descriptions of land, society, economy, and governance underscore the role of the past in the formation of contemporary Vietnam and its relationships with neighboring countries and the West.
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editorial Reviews
Review
[Sources of Vietnamese Tradition] will be indispensable for students interested in Vietnamese society and political theory.... Essential. (Choice)
This addition to the venerable Introduction to Asian Civilizations series marks a major step in the maturation of Vietnam Studies in the American academy. (Foreign Affairs)
This is an excellent volume that fills a long-standing need for English-language translations of primary documents that cover the chronological breadth and diverse concerns of the Vietnamese past. (Journal of Asian Studies)
The anthology furnishes a good sense of the structure of 'Vietnamese' history and is sure to function both as a formidable work of reference and a sound base for further exploration of the subject. (A.V.M. Horton Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society)
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About the Author
George E. Dutton is associate professor of Southeast Asian languages and cultures and vice chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on social movements, historiographical issues, and colonial culture and education, and he is the author of The Tay So'n Uprising: Society and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam.
Jayne S. Werner is associate research scholar in the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University and professor emerita of political science at Long Island University. Her most recent book is Gender, Household, and State in Post-Revolutionary Vietnam.
John K. Whitmore is research associate at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, and a specialist on premodern Vietnamese and Southeast Asian history. He has taught at Yale University, the University of Virginia, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Product details
Series: Introduction to Asian Civilizations
Paperback: 664 pages
George Edson Dutton Page
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Biography
I am a Professor at UCLA in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, where I teach courses on Vietnamese history and aspects of Southeast Asian societies and cultures. I am also Director of the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies. My research covers numerous elements of Vietnamese history between the middle of the eighteenth century and the 1930. I have written about topics ranging from poetry to military technology to newspaper culture.
I am particularly interested in topics of society and culture, notably questions of modernization, changing language, and religious practices. I have recently completed a biography of Philiphe Binh, an 18th-century Vietnamese priest who travelled to Lisbon on behalf of his fellow Catholics in 1796. Father Binh spent the rest of his life in Lisbon, where he died in 1833. This book is currently in production with the University of California Press and will likely be released in the Spring of 2017.
While I write books on Vietnamese history, I primarily read mystery novels in my spare time. I am currently reading my way through the list of Edgar Award-winning first novels, and am slowly collecting a complete set of the first editions of those novels. I hope eventually to take a break from academic writing to pen my own mystery.
Showing 1-6 of 6 reviews
syrion
4.0 out of 5 starsExcellent selection of texts, but baffling transliteration decisionsJanuary 14, 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The texts here are interesting and often very difficult (or impossible?) to find in English translation elsewhere, but the editors made a really odd decision in transliterating Vietnamese names to the basic English alphabet. There are many names that are similar, distinguished only by "đ" or "ă," or even by tones (e.g. Hiến versus Hiển), and this text would render both as "Hien."
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A. Thomas
5.0 out of 5 starsI enjoyed it. Interesting readingAugust 21, 2014
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Purchased for a student for her International Night Poster Presentation. Then I started to read it. I enjoyed it. Interesting reading.
2 people found this helpful
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Mrs. S
5.0 out of 5 starsPrimary SourceApril 22, 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Great Book
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Mimi Pham
5.0 out of 5 starsFive StarsSeptember 27, 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
very nice a good book when one need to learn about vietnamese culture history
2 people found this helpful
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James P Ollen
5.0 out of 5 starsGripping, scholarly, enlightening story of the turtle's claw and what came afterMay 7, 2013
Format: Paperback
What a pleasure to find a description of Vietnamese history that sticks to source material and has no political axe to grind! The excerpts from long-ago writers are mercifully brief and illustrate relevant issues that tell a classic story of the mountain and the sea, the white chicken and the golden turtle, the north and the south.
The maps are superb, although I would have liked to see more maps such as shown in the Landmark edition of Herodotus. I liked the clarity of the modern pinyin spelling of Chinese names followed by their Vietnamese equivalents. The book helped me to appreciate the intertwined myth and non-fiction that is the ancient story of Vietnam. Although I found it at a bookstore, not at Amazon, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Vietnamese history.
15 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsInsight into political and cultural developmentsMay 7, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition
Great collection of official documents and literary excerpts which allow insight into the political and cultural developments in Vietnam. Their constant struggle for independence against foreign powers, culminating in the 30-years war. Should be required reading for all those interested in the history of SEA.
The noticeable lacks were in the areas of early revolutions against the Chinese occupation and the Chinese option that it was a land of "disease and death" and a fitting place for exile.
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Dec 30, 2013Patrick rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I found this book to be very informative and helpful in trying to better understand the unique trajectory of the entire Vietnamese national tradition. Certainly the entire story cannot be told in one volume, but this book is a damn good introduction to it. I now feel confident to dive into any book that deals with a more specific era or topic in Vietnamese history. This book - the most recent in Columbia University's series of Introductions to Asian Civilizations - features primary sources from mostly Vietnamese authors who experienced, witnessed, and actively participated in the shaping of Vietnamese culture, politics, economics, and society. The reader is introduced to some of Vietnam's most eminent scholars, vociferous political ideologues, contemplative religious thinkers, and passionate poets through their own words. Lofty imperial edicts are presented alongside the humble musings of a local official on traditional peasant festivals. Communist revolutionaries, powerful emperors, Catholic bishops, and Buddhist monks all get their say in the pages of this book. After reading this book, when asked by someone else "What is Vietnamese culture like?", one should be able to confidently say that, like any culture, it is a deeply complicated, constantly debated, and multi-polar one. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in understanding Vietnam better. (less)
Dec 18, 2014Thomas Armstrong rated it liked it
I got this book because of a trip to Vietnam. It helped me get a sense of the rich cultural traditions in Vietnam. So much of my knowledge about Vietnam was shaped by the media accounts of the Vietnam war (e.g. Hanoi was a place where the enemy was located, where we attempted to negotiate peace, where Jane Fonda went and sat on a tank etc.). It was a delight to learn about the different dynasties, the tension between south and north going back a thousand years, the tensions with the dynasties of mainland China, the role of Buddhism, and so much more. It provided me with some background that was invaluable for me when I took a one-day tour of Hanoi, and visited a Buddhist pagoda, a Confucian university (how many Americans know that it predates the Sorbonne?), a Taoist temple, the Ho Chi Minh memorial grounds, and the French architecture. I have now totally altered my sense of what ''North Vietnam'' was all about. My trip to Saigon was very fast, so the only thing I really absorbed was the heat, the coffee, and the government headquarters. I only read the first 100 pages, so I will keep this for future reference in case I go back (I hope) to Vietnam for other experiences of their culture. (less)
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