Nguyễn Dynasty
“Gia Long” Does NOT Mean “Gia Định + Thăng Long”
I keep coming across references to this idea that in 1802, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, the founder of the Nguyễn Dynasty, to quote Wikipedia: “crowned himself
Honoring the Emperor in the (Original) Gia Định Báo
“Gia Định báo” is the name of what many people consider to be the first Vietnamese newspaper. It was first published in 1865 in Vietnamese
Local Spirits and “Nguyễn Dynasty Religion”
Several months ago, or maybe longer, I downloaded a new article that I wanted to read, but I’ve only now had time to do so.
Honoring the Nguyễn Ancestors in Early-Nineteenth-Century Huế
For basically as long as scholars have been writing in English about premodern Vietnamese history, there has been an effort to argue that Vietnam (or
LMK Vlog #08: The Son of Heaven (Thiên tử 天子)
It is well known that Vietnamese emperors in the past saw themselves as the “Son of Heaven” (Thiên tử 天子), that is, as the main
Emperor Đồng Khánh’s First State Letter (Quốc Thư 國書)
The period from 1883-1885 was a dramatic time in Vietnamese history. The troubles began with the passing of Nguyễn Dynasty Emperor Tự Đức, an emperor
Ngô Đình Khả’s Rise to the Top Through the Quốc Học
I have been trying to figure out the chronology of events that led to the establishment in 1896 of the Quốc học, a school in
Emperor Thành Thái’s Edict to Establish the Quốc học in 1896
In 1896, the Nguyễn Dynasty established a school at the royal capital in Huế for teaching French. Known in Vietnamese as the Quốc học, its
A Confucian/Anti-French Critique of the Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục
I recently came across a fascinating text from the early twentieth century that contains a critique of the Dông Kinh Nghĩa Thục. The Đông Kinh
Reading Khải Định – The Last Vietnamese Emperor
One major “blind spot” that exists in our understanding of modern Vietnamese history concerns what happened at the Nguyễn Dynasty court in the late nineteenth
Erasing Confucian Temples (Văn Miếu 文廟) from Vietnamese History
I’ve recently been doing some research using a nineteenth-century geography called the Đại Nam nhất thống chí 大南一統志 (Unified Gazetteer of Đại Nam). As usual,
Gia Long’s De-Localization of Hanoi’s Văn Miếu
When the Nguyễn Dynasty came to power in 1802, there was a Confucian Temple (Văn Miếu 文廟) in Long Hồ hamlet, outside the imperial citadel.
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
Emperor Tự Đức as a Reformer
In English-language writings on Vietnamese history, the Nguyễn Dynasty has long been depicted as resistant to reform. In this depiction, people like Emperor Tự Đức
Gia Long and Nôm
In his 1971 work, Vietnam and the Chinese Model, historian Alexander Woodside sought to demonstrate that there was a discernable distinction between a (Southeast Asian)
Minh Mạng and Nôm
Alexander Woodside’s Vietnam and the Chinese Model (1971) is a pioneering work of scholarship that remains today an important study of nineteenth-century Vietnam and the
Emperor Thành Thái’s 1906 Promotion of Western Learning
On the 29th of May in 1906, Emperor Thành Thái issued regulations to reform the education curriculum for students in schools that were meant to
Emperor Thành Thái’s Educational Revolution
Read any book on modern Vietnamese history, and it will glorify a reformist school that enjoyed a brief existence in Hanoi in 1907 – the
Rethinking the History of Early-Twentieth-Century Vietnam
When the final palace exam was held in Huế in 1919, there were questions in both classical Chinese and modern Vietnamese (using the Latin script,
A Bilingual Introduction to Volcanoes in 1911 Vietnam
Phạm Quang Sán was a fascinating individual. In 1908 he translated into classical Chinese reformist ideas that were originally written in Vietnamese so that people
