The Empire of Siam
Anyone who has ever been to Thailand or read anything about Thailand has undoubtedly heard that Thailand is “the only country in Southeast Asia that has never been colonized.” On…
The Place of “Ta” in “Khoa Học”
I still don’t understand what the term “khoa học” means to Vietnamese scholars. It is how the term “science” was originally translated into Vietnamese, but today I don’t know anyone…
The Cham-Việt Frontier as a “Middle Ground”
One of the most important books written about the history of North America in recent decades is Richard White’s The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes…
On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Vietnam
Yesterday I re-read John Smail’s 1961 article, “On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 2.2 (1961): 72-102. This article was published…
Bộ Đội and Watches at War’s End
A reader of this blog just made the comment that “it’s fascinating to look at period newspapers, because there often are bits of evidence that enrich, reposition and sometimes refute…
Natives in US Consulates in Early-20th-Century Southeast Asia
I was looking at some dispatches from US consulates in Southeast Asia in the early twentieth century when I came across a couple of letters, one from Singapore and the…
The Evilness of Money in Pre-75 Saigon. . .
In reading Huy Đức’s Bên Thắng Cuộc, I saw that in some parts he made extensive use of the newspaper, Sài Gòn Giải Phóng [Liberated Saigon]. I had never read…
Restless Chinese and American Steam Machinery in 1850s Bangkok
These days it is as easy (or even easier!) to get say Italian, Japanese, Indian or Vietnamese food in Bangkok as it is in any major metropolis on the planet.…
The Last or First of the Hundred Việt/Yue?
Several months ago a reader asked me to respond to an article (here) that essentially makes an argument that has been made many times before, namely that the Việt are…
Wanted Dead or Alive in Sandakan
The genre of movies about the American West in the late nineteenth century known as “Westerns” are very specific to that time and place, but they are also universal as…
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