Nationalism
How Did Vietnam Transform from a Lateral-Aristocratic Ethnie into a Modern Nation?
In 1980 a conference was held in Hanoi to mark the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the Institute of History (Viện Sử Học). The
When was the Vietnamese Nation Formed?
In North Vietnam in the 1950s there were a few major historiographical debates that took place between scholars, and which were published in two journals:
Modern Vietnamese Historians and the “Dân Tộc” Question
In the nineteenth century when reformist Japanese scholars sought to learn about the West, they had to come up with many new terms in order
Đào Duy Anh’s 1946 Book on the Origins of the Vietnamese
After the August Revolution in 1945, Vietnamese historian Đào Duy Anh was invited to teach history at a university that was established later that same
The Premodern Past that Haunts Modern Vietnamese
There at it again. For the past few days Vietnamese cyberspace has been filled with articles and discussions about whether Chinese characters (chữ Hán) should
Is There a Purpose to this Blog?
Is there a purpose to this blog? I guess I would say “sometimes.” If there is a purpose to this blog it would be to
The Origins of Patriotic Education in Vietnam
Following the ideas of the previous two blog entries below, one of the main elements of the dominant paradigm of Vietnamese history is that Vietnamese
Patriotism and History in Malaysia and Hong Kong
There have been a couple of related news events recently that are quite interesting. A few days ago media in Malaysia reported that a new
Paradigm Shifts in Vietnamese History
The term “paradigm shift” is often used by academics. It is a term that was created by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book, The Structure
The Problem of the Term “Việt” In a National History
Many people today write histories of nations. They create a narrative about the origins of a nation and then follow its development through time. That
Nationalist Victim Narratives in China and Vietnam
Recently there have been anti-Japan demonstrations in China, and anti-China demonstrations in Vietnam. These demonstrations in both instances are related to issues about certain uninhabited
Vietnam Mapped
I have absolutely no desire to get involved in the Trường Sa/Hoàng Sa debate. Why? Because I’m an historian and as an historian I can’t
The Geo-Body of Vietnam
In 1983, Benedict Anderson argued in his book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism that nations are “imagined,” and that one
On Not Theorizing the Nation in Vietnam
The nation (dân tộc) is a critical concept in Vietnamese scholarship. It is a concept which is ubiquitous in Vietnamese writings, and yet it is
