Descending Dragon, Rising Tiger
A History of Vietnam
Published on 1. October 2014
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-1-78023-364-2 (ISBN)
Description
With the exception of its war with the United States, Vietnam's history remains significantly under-studied. In this comprehensive book, Vu Hong Lien and Peter D. Sharrock chronicle the vast sweep of the region's tumultuous past, from the Bronze Age to the present day.
Historians writing about Vietnam have defined the country as either a ragged Chinese subordinate aspiring to a full 'Chinese' way of life, or as a rebel Chinese province defined entirely by its shaky relationship to its looming neighbour. Yet archaeological evidence now shows culturally distinct and technologically sophisticated human occupation in the region from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Unshackled from the confined histories of outsiders, imperial invaders and occupiers, the history of Vietnam is revealed as central to the cultural, political and ethnic development of Southeast Asia over the past millennia. With a scope unrivalled by previous accounts, Descending Dragon, Rising Tiger is a definitive history of the Vietnamese people, culture and nation.
Historians writing about Vietnam have defined the country as either a ragged Chinese subordinate aspiring to a full 'Chinese' way of life, or as a rebel Chinese province defined entirely by its shaky relationship to its looming neighbour. Yet archaeological evidence now shows culturally distinct and technologically sophisticated human occupation in the region from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Unshackled from the confined histories of outsiders, imperial invaders and occupiers, the history of Vietnam is revealed as central to the cultural, political and ethnic development of Southeast Asia over the past millennia. With a scope unrivalled by previous accounts, Descending Dragon, Rising Tiger is a definitive history of the Vietnamese people, culture and nation.
Reviews / Votes
This is a richly detailed book . . . Judicious in its views and remarkably comprehensive in its coverage, this is an extremely fine introduction to the history of Vietnam. * Ian Brown, Professor of Economic History of Southeast Asia, SOAS, London * This ambitious book represents the first attempt to document the history of Vietnam in English from the earliest times to the end of the American-Vietnamese War in the mid-1970s . . . a relatively small country on a world scale [Vietnam] has a long, complex and rather well documented history. * Ian Glover, Emeritus Reader in Southeast Asian Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
60 illustrations
ISBN-13
978-1-78023-364-2 (9781780233642)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
11/2014
Reaktion Books
€34.99
Available for download
Persons
Vu Hong Lien is a Vietnamese-British historian, and a guest lecturer at SOAS based in London, uk. She is author of Royal Hue, Heritage of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam (2015) and co-author of Descending Dragon, Rising Tiger, a History of Vietnam (Reaktion Books, 2014).