The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam

Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes

by Hue-Tam Ho Tai, John Bodnar (Foreword)

The American experience in the Vietnam War has been the subject of a vast body of scholarly work, yet surprisingly little has been written about how the war is remembered by Vietnamese themselves. The Country of Memory fills this gap in the literature by addressing the subject of history, memory, and commemoration of the Vietnam War in modern day Vietnam.

This pathbreaking volume details the nuances, sources, and contradictions in both official and private memory of the War, providing a provocative assessment of social and cultural change in Vietnam since the 1980s. Inspired by the experiences of Vietnamese veterans, artists, authorities, and ordinary peasants, these essays examine a society undergoing a rapid and traumatic shift in politics and economic structure. Each chapter considers specific aspects of Vietnamese culture and society, such as art history, commemorative rituals and literature, gender, and tourism. The contributors call attention to not only the social milieu in which the work of memory takes place, but also the historical context in which different representations of the past are constructed.

Drawing from a variety of sources, such as prison memoirs, commemorative shrines, funerary rituals, tourist sites and brochures, advertisements, and films, the authors piece together the disparate representations of the past in Vietnam. With these rare perspectives, The Country of Memory makes an important contribution to debates within postcolonial studies, as well as to the literature on memory, Vietnam, and the Vietnam War.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

275 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Position: Kenneth T. Young Professor of Sino-vietnamese History

Field: East Asia

Specialty: Social and cultural history of modern Vietnam

Current Interests
Public memory and public history; the famine of 1945 in northern Vietnam as experience and memory; telling lives: biography and autobiography.

Selected Publications
*"Remembered Realms: Pierre Nora and French National Memory" in The American Historical Review(2001)
* The Country of Memory:Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam (2001)
* "Representing the Past in Vietnamese Museums" in Curator (1998)
* "Monumental Ambiguity: the State Commemoration of Ho Chi Minh" in Essays into Vietnamese Pasts (1995)
* Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution (1992)
* Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam (1983)

Reviews

[Wendy G · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of articles about how the American War (what we refer to as the Vietnam War) is being contested in post-war and modern Vietnamese society and culture. I have lived in Vietnam and I have observed a lot of what the writers refer to, but I haven't always understood the background or the meaning of what I have observed. This book was very helpful.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-researched and written. The authors definitely communicated extensively throughout the writing process for this book, as evidenced by the way they actively responded to one another's arguments. I found the chapters on tourism and Vietnamese women particularly insightful in its analysis of the way capitalism has altered Vietnam's memorial landscape.

[versarbre · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always nice to think about a similar historical trajectory yet from a different location and see its differences and resonances.