Vietnamese Early History
The Politicization of Archaeology in 1960s North Vietnam
Archaeology garners a lot of respect in Vietnam. It is seen as being much more “scientific” (khoa học) than a field like history, as historical
What’s so “Colonial” about Colonial-Era Scholarship?
I came across an article that Đào Duy Anh published in 1954 in the journal Văn Sử Địa. In this article, Đào Duy Anh argues
Rice, Slaves and Văn Lang
I went to a talk last night by a very famous scholar who was talking about the Neolithic Revolution. This guy made the point that
The Logic of Historians and the 28 Yin Dynasty Female Generals
I recently wrote about a spirit in Phù Đổng village known as Saint Gióng (Thánh Gióng) or the Soaring-to-Heaven King (冲天神王) or Heavenly King of
Dương Bá Trác on the Origins of the Vietnamese Race
Scientists have long noted that there is no biological basis for race. Races of human beings do not actually exist. They are social constructs. People
An Examination of the Name Giao Chỉ/Jiaozhi
Chen Jinghe/Trần Kinh Hòa was an historian who was born in 1917 in the Japanese colony of Taiwan. However, he went to school, from elementary
The Absence of Historical Memory in Early “Vietnam”
When medieval Việt scholars wrote the first histories of the Red River Delta region, they structured their histories around the political principle of an “orthodox
Nguyễn Phương on the Origins of the Vietnamese Nation
Nguyễn Phương was a Catholic priest and historian who worked at the University of Hue in the 1960s. In 1965 he published a book entitled
Tự Đức’s Dismissal of Sĩ Nhiếp
One of the stereotypes which the Nguyễn Dynasty has suffered from is that it was “overly Sinitic/Confucian,” and that this made them impractical to the
The Problem of Continuity in Early “Vietnamese” Archaeology
Archaeological Highlights, a Vietnamese blog on archaeology, history, methodology, and other issues, has an interesting recent post which questions how the archaeological materials that have
Where Vietnamese Antiquity Came From
Keith Taylor began his 1983 work on early Vietnamese history, The Birth of Vietnam, with the following sentence: “The earliest traditions of the Vietnamese people,
How the Hùng Kings Obtained a Citadel
The Hùng Kings are an invention. They were not invented out of nothing, but instead were fashioned out of extant written sources. This process of
The Real Ông Trọng
Over a year ago I posted a blog entry on The Invention of Lý Ông Trọng in which I argued that there was no evidence
The 18 Generations of Hùng Kings
Everyone knows that the Hùng Kings supposedly ruled for 18 generations. However, where does that information come from? The earliest sources on the Hùng Kings
Lạc Long Quân and the Ancient Script of Our South
I came across this revealed gatha (偈), or verse, in a collection of spirit writing from 1921 entitled the Nam Hải Tam Thừa Diễn Nghĩa
Trần Quốc Vượng’s Khun Argument: Why Vietnamese Scholarship Doesn’t Progress
In an article entitled “On the Title ‘Hùng King’” (Về Danh Hiệu ‘Hùng Vương’”) in the third Hùng Vương Dụng Nước volume (this volume was
Trần Ngọc Thêm and the Dire Condition of Vietnamese Scholarship
I was reading Trần Ngọc Thêm’s Tìm Về Bản Sắc Văn Hóa Việt Nam (TPHCM: Nhà Xuất Bản Tổng Hợp Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh,
Deconstructing the Myth of the Antiquity of the Vietnamese Nation
The online journal, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, has recently published two articles which deal with the period when “Vietnam” was under “Chinese” rule. Michael Churchman’s
The Indonesian Masters of Đông Sơn Culture
I haven’t had much time to post to this blog recently. I still don’t have much time, but I’m putting up this article here for
The Death Anniversary of the Hùng Kings
There was a wave of scholarship in the DRV in the 1960s on the Hùng kings. This culminated in a book which Văn Tân, Nguyễn