Born on a Colonial plantation in Malaya, the Author now lives in Tuscany. His gaze travels the longue durée of history, taking in the rubber trees in Malaya, sugar fields in the Caribbean prospering on slavery, oil rich plains of Venezuela, and corridors of power in Washington and Beijing. They are not stories in isolation, he writes, but nodes in a single, sprawling network of extraction and order. And if the Empire seems to be returning, the fact is it never really went away.
Full Text PDFFour tales are presented in this section, the first concerning the origin of the Vietnamese people, the second concerning a mythical victory over a mythical enemy, the third concerned with maritime trade combined with Buddhist magic as a source of wealth and power, and the fourth concerning the establishment of the semi-mythical kingdom of Âu Lạc and its subsequent overthrow by Zhào Tuó, a Qín General from what is now Hénán Province in China. Zhào Tuó establishes a new independent kingdom, Nam Việt, with its capital city located in what is now the city of Guǎngzhōu.
Full Text PDFThis section has seven tales. The first three describe the depredations inflicted on the people by different types of monsters and the means used to destroy them. The last four are concerned in various ways with the Chinese General and Administrator, Cao Biền 高 駢 (Chinese: Gāo Pián), who was sent South in 865 by the Tang Emperor to confront and defeat the forces of Nánzhào (Vietnamese: Namchiếu), which were invading An Nam.
Full Text PDFThe first millennium of the Common Era (year 1 to year 1000 CE) is often referred to by the Vietnamese as “the period of northern domination” (thời bắc thuộc), because throughout this period the ancestors of the Vietnamese were usually ruled by Generals and Administrators sent South from China. The Tales in this section concern periods of resistance to this domination on the part of the local people. – Eric Henry.
Full Text PDFThroughout the two thousand years of Vietnamese history, local Generals managed to win encounters in which the odds seemed heavily weighted against them. Vietnamese storytellers have long been inclined to attribute these successes to the assistance provided by powerful spirits, often the still-active souls of heroes who lived in preceding centuries. These figures typically appear in dreams to the Commanders, and make promises of loyal assistance.
Full Text PDFThe establishment of a Temple, and the supplications and rewards associated with that Temple, is a motif that appears in many of the tales in this collection, and is a prominent element in each of the tales presented here.—Eric Henry.
Full Text PDFA combined review of Aki Tonami (2016), Nong Hong (2020), Woon and Dodds (eds. 2020), and Martin Kossa (2024).
Aki Tonami, Asian Foreign Policy in a Changing Arctic: The Diplomacy of Economy and Science at New Frontiers. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 140 pages, INR 4,578.
Nong Hong, China’s Role in the Arctic: Observing and Being Observed. Routledge, 2020, 232 pages, INR 4,249.
Chih Yuan Woon and Klaus Dodds, eds., ‘Observing’ the Arctic: Asia in the Arctic Council and Beyond. Edward Elgar, 2020, 256 pages, INR 3,576.
Martin Kossa, The Arctic in China’s National Strategy: Science, Security, and Governance. Routledge, 2024, 173 pages, INR 3,761.
Unsilent Strangers: Music, Minorities, Coexistence, Japan, Edited by Hugh de Ferranti, Masaya Shishikura, and Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes. Singapore: NUS Press, National University of Singapore, 2023, 314 pages, SGD42.
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