Fringe History
Fringe History
Since the 1960s there has been a version of Vietnamese early history that is particularly nationalistic. This version of the past argues that the ancestors of the Vietnamese were the first people to inhabit the Asian mainland and that they essentially established the foundation for what we today think of as “Chinese” or “East Asian” culture.
Professional, or establishment, historians in Vietnam do not generally uphold this view of the past. I therefore label this form of history “fringe history,” as it inhabits a space on the fringe of established knowledge about the past.
Nonetheless, over the past 20 or so years, these ideas have increasingly made their way into Vietnamese universities, and can now be found in university textbooks and on university web pages.
The posts that deal with this topic are categorized as “Fringe History.”
The “Fringe History” Of Hà Văn Thùy, Cung Đình Thanh, Lương Kim Định and Lý Đông A
One of the first posts that I ever wrote for this blog was called “Hà Văn Thùy and Ancient Việt Races (Has the BBC Gone
Vietnamese Prehistory and International Scholarship – Part 3: Sauer, Solheim & Hòa Bình
The late archaeologist Wilhelm Solheim would probably be very surprised to find that statements he made way back in 1971 are cited today as “evidence”
Vietnamese Prehistory and International Scholarship – Part 2: Thought & Solheim
In 1971, archaeologist Wilhelm “Bill” Solheim made some comments in the magazine National Geographic about the origins of agriculture. His comments were premature, and turned
Vietnamese Prehistory and International Scholarship – Part 1: Introduction
For the past half century or so there has been an idea circulating in the Vietnamese world that holds that the ancestors of the Vietnamese
Tiền sử Việt Nam và học thuật quốc tế (phần 1)
This is my first attempt at making a video in Vietnamese. . . You gotta start somewhere. . . In recent years some Vietnamese people
Cung Đình Thanh – The Most Influential Vietnamese Historian of the 21st Century (so far)
There are certain ideas about early Vietnamese history that one can easily find expressed on the Internet, such as the ideas that 1) Hòa Bình
A 20th-Century Vietnamese Origin Story (Part 1)
In the summer of 2016 I gave a talk at Nhà Sàn Collective, an art space in Hanoi, on some of the historical ideas that
Mothers, Wombs and Serpents: Huỳnh Sanh Thông’s Female-Centric Theory of the Origins of Language
I’ve written a lot on this blog about the South Vietnamese philosopher Lương Kim Định. One thing I like about Kim Định is that he
The Yijing is Vietnamese Animated Movie
Having written extensively over the years about the idea that South Vietnamese philosopher Lương Kim Định promoted that the Yijing (Kinh Dịch) was created by
Lý Đông A, Lương Kim Định, Trần Ngọc Thêm and Terrien de Lacouperie’s Ancient Chinese Migration
As I’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog, there is an idea that is of central importance to Vietnamese ultra-nationalists, and that is that in
Racism in Vietnamese Scholarship (Part 5 – Conclusion)
In looking at all of the racialized/essentialist/Orientalist concepts that Trần Ngọc Thêm employs in his textbook, Searching for the True Nature of Vietnamese Culture (Tìm
Racism in Vietnamese Scholarship (Part 4)
Having developed a racialized/essentialist argument that Eurasia is divided into two main racial/cultural groups that can be described through various binary categories – East/West, Southeast/Northwest,
Racism in Vietnamese Scholarship (Part 3)
In his 1978 book, Orientalism, Edward Said documented how Western scholars and writers, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, produced knowledge about “the Orient”
Racism in Vietnamese Scholarship (Part 2)
Having argued, by distorting the ideas of Soviet ethnologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Cheboksarov, that humankind was divided into two main racial groups in the early Paleolithic
Racism in Vietnamese Scholarship (Part 1)
So I was reading Trần Ngọc Thêm’s Searching for the True Nature of Vietnamese Culture (Tìm về bản sắc văn hóa Việt Nam), a textbook
The Great Agricultural (Nông Nghiệp) – Pastoral (Du Mục) Divide, or how Kim Định and Trần Ngọc Thêm Distorted Will Durant’s Ideas
One of the core tenets of Vietnamese ultranationalism is the idea that there is a fundamental division between Han Chinese and Vietnamese. In particular, the
Duplicity in Chinese Scholarship?
Yesterday the New York Times had an article on a new scholarship that is being created that will enable non-Chinese to study in China. “The
Deconstructing Trần Ngọc Thêm’s Nationalist Propaganda
Whenever I feel the need to be reminded of how deceitful nationalist “scholarship” can sometimes be, I open up one of Trần Ngọc Thêm’s books
Wikipedia and Vietnamese Historical Scholarship
Ok, I know Wikipedia is not “scholarship,” but I’m going to use it to talk about scholarship anyway, because I just read an entry on
The Peer Review Process and Vietnamese Scholarship
I was thinking about the passage from Trần Ngọc Thêm’s book that I discussed below and trying to understand how information like that can get
