Synopses & Reviews
Why did the Vietnamese accept certain Chinese institutions and yet explicitly reject others? How did Vietnamese cultural borrowings from China alter the dynamics of traditional relations between Vietnam, Siam, Laos, and Cambodia? How did Vietnam's smaller Southeast Asian environment modify and distort classical East Asian institutions?
Woodside has answered these questions in this well-received political and cultural study. This first real comparison of the civil governments of two traditional East Asian societies on an institution-by-institution basis is now reissued with a new preface.
Review
...the first serious work of American scholarship on Vietnam in the early nineteenth century...a major event in the development of Vietnamese studies in the US... Political Science Review
Review
...a penetrating look at the institutions, traditions, and attitudes that governed nineteenth-century Vietnam and that determine much of what is happening today...a classical study in the modification of the Chinese cultural pattern in a Southeast Asian environment...a work absolutely indispensable for insight into the evolution of Vietnam's political society and style... American Historical Review
Synopsis
Here is the first real comparison of the civil governments of two traditional East Asian societies on an institution-by-institution basis. Mr. Woodside examines in detail the surviving statutes of both societies in his political and cultural study, a pioneering venture in East Asian comparative history.
About the Author
Alexander Woodside is Professor of Chinese and Southeast Asian History, University of British Columbia.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition
Preface Vietnam and China: Acculturation's Apparitions and Certain Realities Behind Them
The Vietnamese Monarchy and Its Two Traditions
Vietnamese Historiography and Vietnamese Interaction with China
Southeast Asian Features in Vietnamese Society and Culture
Familial Institutions and the Sino-Vietnamese Social Order
Linguistic and Literary Bridge-Building between China and Vietnam
The Hazards of the Vietnamese Throne
Nguyen and Ch'ing Central Civil Administration: Power Structures and Communications Processes
Imperial Power in Bureaucratic Confucian Society
An Overview of Sino-Vietnamese Central Civil Administration
Nguyen Variations within the Basic Administrative Plan Borrowed from China
The Imperial Secretariats and the Flow of Information from Village to Throne
The Nguyn Privy Council and Minh-mang's Work of Centralization
Ratings in the Vietnamese and Chinese Bureaucracies
The Borrowing Ideals of Court Bureaucrats and the Practical Problems of Provincial Administrators
Methods and Factors in the Diffusion of Chinese Books and Ideas
The Borrowing of an Imperial Milieu: The Rise of Huê'
Regionalism and the Breakdown of Administrative Homogeneity
The Chinese Provincial System's Transposition to Vietnam
"The Laws of the Emperor are Less than the Customs of the Village"
Chinese Methods of Rural Control: The Court Confronts Provincial Officialdom
Education and Examinations in Nguyen Vietnam
An Overview of the Vietnamese Examination System in the 1800's
Students, Teachers, and Texts
The Bureaucratic Organization of the Examination System
The Contents of the Examinations and their Purpose
Regional Vicissitudes of the Vietnamese Examination System
The Nature of Vietnamese Confucianism and the Alienation of Cao Bá Quát
The Emperor, the Bureaucracy, and the World outside Vietnam
The Vietnamese Court's Creation of a Tributary System
Model versus Realities: The Nguyen Duel with Siam over Cambodia and Laos
The Nguyen Court's Approaches to Foreign Trade
The Vietnamese Reaction to the Opium War
The Invasion of Western Culture
Abbreviations
Notes
Note on Major Primary Sources
Bibliography
Glossary
Index