Going Backwards
Going Backwards: A Series
In 2017 historian Ben Kiernan published a survey of Vietnamese history with Oxford University Press called Viet Nam: A History From Earliest Times to the Present.
Prior to the publication of this text, historians Keith Taylor and Christopher Goscha each published a survey of Vietnamese history. Both of these historians are experts on Vietnamese history. While one can find points to critique in each of these books, on the whole they are solid works that advance our knowledge of Vietnamese history.
Kiernan, by contrast, is not an expert on Vietnam. When he wrote his book he had the equivalent of one year of classroom Vietnamese language study and no knowledge of classical Chinese. And yet, for some reason he decided to write a book that devotes hundreds of pages to premodern Vietnamese history.
Needless to say, I found a lot to criticize in this book. So I did, and the posts below contain those critiques.
There are undoubtedly people who wonder why I chose to do this. The reason is very simple.
- Very few people can evaluate scholarship on premodern Vietnamese history.
- The standard 800-word book review format is not sufficient for demonstrating the seriousness of the flaws in this book.
- I knew that there would be scholars who would simply opt to remain silent.
There is a lot of politeness and diplomacy in academia. And there is a lot of mediocrity too.
The posts below may at times not be as polite or diplomatic as they could be, but I did my best to not be mediocre.
7. Going Backwards: (Mis)Citing Lê Thành Khôi
In the second chapter of Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present author Ben Kiernan has a passage where he writes about
6. Going Backwards: An (Updated) Addendum
[12/11/2017. Note: Professor Kiernan has responded to this post and has graciously pointed out that a comment I made is incorrect. There is one character
Trịnh Hoài Đức, Gabriel Aubaret and the Production of Knowledge about the Mekong Delta
In the early nineteenth century, Trịnh Hoài Đức, a Vietnamese scholar-official of Chinese descent, compiled a geographical gazetteer of the Mekong Delta region entitled the
5. Going Backwards: Conclusion
[For an addendum to these opening comments, see this post.] Ben Kiernan begins his new Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present
4. Going Backwards: Cherry Picking Outdated Information
In his Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present, Ben Kiernan argues that in the early history of Vietnam there were two
Revisiting Norman and Mei’s Austroasiatic-Speakers in Ancient South China
In 1976, linguists Jerry Norman and Tsu-Lin Mei published an influential article entitled “The Austroasiatics in Ancient South China: Some Lexical Evidence.” In this article,
3. Going Backwards: The Yue Migration Theory
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, French missionaries, military officials and scholars all asked questions about the Vietnamese that the Vietnamese had never
2. Going Backwards: Tai and Vietics
There are people in Khammouane Province in Laos who speak a language known as Saek (Sek). In the twentieth century, Western scholars struggled to identify
Who Were the Yue?
In her Ancient China and the Yue: Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c. 400 BC-50 CE, historian Erica Brindley opens the book with
1. Going Backwards: The Aquatic Culture Myth
In his 1983 work, The Birth of Vietnam, Keith Taylor argued that Vietnamese “mythical traditions. . . reveal a sea-oriented culture coming to terms with
Going Backwards: A Series
Not all scholarship is equal. There are books and articles that get published that are flawed. Part of the job of a scholar is to
What Language(s) did the Ancient Yue Speak?
In the first millennium BC, “Chinese” writers recorded information about various peoples who lived to their south. These people were called by various names such
“Rice from the Sky” . . .
In his new survey of Vietnamese history, Ben Kiernan attempts to include information on environmental history. As part of that effort, he has a section
The Trần Dynasty’s Exotic Pet Crocodile
In 1282, upon seeing that crocodiles had reached the Lô River (i.e., the Red River), emperor Trần Nhân Tông ordered one of his officials, Nguyễn
Crocodiles and the Sinking of Premodern Vietnamese History
I have been trying my hardest not to comment on Ben Kiernan’s recent book, Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present. However,
The Problem of “Textual Drift” in Studies on Premodern Vietnamese History
There is a new survey of Vietnamese history that has just been published. It is a book by Yale professor Ben Kiernan called Việt Nam:
