Thorel, Clovis; Agriculture and Ethnobotany of the Mekong Basin
This fourth volume presents an in-depth overview of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, dye and textile plants, and medicinal plants, and discusses the main trade crops of the countries of the wider Mekong Valley, including Yunnan, Vietnam, Laos, Northeast Thailand, and Cambodia. The main impediments to greater productivity of these sectors are discussed in the framework of the beginning of French colonial expansion in the area. This overview contains a host of scientific facts on uses of plants and agricultural methods practiced on various types of land that cannot be found easily anywhere else. The book has been enhanced with a number of period scientific drawings of botanical taxa of interest to present-day readers and rare period photographs.

Cupet, Captain P.; Among the Tribes of Southern Vietnam and Laos
This book reports a chapter of Franco-Siamese politics played out in 1890-91 among the independent tribes inhabiting the crossroads between French Southern Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Since various semi-independent states in present-day Southern Laos and Cambodia were under the sovereignty of, and paid tribute to, the King of Siam, Siamese military units were once again confronting the dominant colonial power, France, at the borders. The author, Captain P. Cupet, was a member of the famous Pavie Mission and studied the politics as well as the ethnography and anthropology of the tribes for years. So his report incorporates significant material on such tribes as the Radé, the Djiaraï, the Davak, the Cédang, the Brao, the Bahnar and many smaller tribes. His pictorial material is outstanding and unrivalled as a record of the peoples that, in the 1960s, during the struggle for the forest trails in the next Vietnam war, would enter big power politics once again. Accompanying maps by Auguste Pavie can be found in the Atlas of the Pavie Mission.

Orleans, Henri D'; Around Tonkin and Siam
Prince Henri d’Orléans’s political statement on the future of the French trade and territorial expansion in Indochina is partly a travelog of areas visited: Hanoi, the Red River regions, the Upper Black River to Lai Chau, Luang Prabang and parts of Siam, and partly a political interpretation of the information gathered. The author’s interests range far and wide in the domains of commerce and industry of any kind that might turn out to be profitable for France’s colonial adventure in the Far East. He is also adept at canvassing political support with the local rulers, among whom the legendary Déo Van Tri is the best known. He visited and described several so-called hill tribes: Yao, Kha, Sa, Yan, and others. The book is illustrated, and some of the illustrations show rare settings. Although variable in quality, these provide some idea of the “primitive” state of these future French subjects.

Eckardt, James; Boat People
Boat People is a panoramic novel of greed and compassion, violence and family love, desperation and hope. It is September 1981, the high tide of boat people flight from Vietnam. Front the Mekong Delta port of Rach Gia, one boat—crammed with fishermen, farmers, political refugees and urban hustlers— runs a 300-mile gauntlet of pirates and storms for the safe haven of the Songkhla Refugee Camp. Here the survivors meet the West in the form of religious idealists and burnt-out aid workers. Some boat people are drawn to black market gangs; others to public service or official corruption. Factions plot against each other and grapple for advantage Covering the refugee beat for the American Consulate, Dan Swartz is torn between being a cynical observer and a reluctant participant in the drama of the camp. Nguyen Xuan Tong is torn too, between loyalty to his gang and his love for Le Thuy Linh. Her protector, the beautiful Huynh Thuc Quan, plays her would-be lover Fred Butterworth against gang leader Huyan Anh. As tensions in the camp flash into violence, both Dan Swartz and Nguyen Xuan Tong are forced to make a painful moral choice: in a snake’s nest of deception and counterplot, where do they stand?

Parmentier, Henri & Mus, Paul & Aymonier, Etienne; Cham Sculpture: Religious Ceremonies and Superstitions of Champa
The first report in this book offers an overview of Cham art with sixty-five photographs and an introductory text by the eminent French archaeologist Henri Parmentier. Originally published in 1922, this book remains one of the best introductions to the treasures preserved in the Tourane Museum in Danang. It features splendid photographs of Cham art discovered in the main areas of this long lost culture—Mi Son, Dong Duong, Khuong My, and Tra Kieu. The development of Cham art is sketched against the background of Annamese migration pushing the Cham people and their kingdom ever further south. The second part consists of two research reports. The first one by Paul Mus summarizes what is known about the religious practices of the Cham people and is based on artifacts and translated inscriptions. The author also reviews evidence from contemporary Cham culture. The religious inheritance of Champa is related to Vedic, Indian, Chinese, and Annamese forms of worship, and the significance of the Champa king as intermediary between the gods and the soil is also discussed. The second report by Étienne Aymonier contains an overview, dated 1884-85, of the religious practices, ceremonies related to veneration of divinities, marriage, birth, priesthood, death, agriculture, collection of eagle wood, and other customs of both groups of Chams, Muslims and non-Muslims, in Vietnam, and Chams in Cambodia.

Maspero, Georges; Champa Kingdom, The (Air mail included Total net Pounds)
This is the first English translation of Georges Maspero’s seminal history of Champa, a kingdom located on the coast of Vietnam. Written at the beginning of the last century, the book went through several editions and revisions based on expert comment. The text presented here in its first English translation is the second revised edition of 1928. Mostly based on Chinese and Viet sources, the book traces the history of Champa from its origins to its final decline. The Cham people, a fierce, often ruthless warrior population living on the South China Sea coasts were subjected both to the Chinese court and, at various periods, to the Viet people advancing south. The Cham often made the coasts unsafe for traders—Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Portuguese alike—and hence fomented innumerable military campaigns against them. The Viet coming from the north pushed them further into the northern and eventually the southern parts of present-day Vietnam. In the end, the Cham fled partly to Cambodia and partly into the peninsula’s inhospitable hills where they live today as a pitiful remnant of a once great nation.

Barrelon, P., B. de Corbigny, Ch. Lemire and G. Cahen; Cities of Nineteenth Century Colonial Vietnam:
This compilation volume provides reports by various French writers on the early development of the French colony of Indochina, present-day Vietnam. Pierre Barrelon’s (1859) account of the colonial history of Cochin-china, the southern part of Vietnam, is supplemented by an 1892 article on the considerable developments that took place in Saigon. Diplomat Broassard de Corbigny (1878) provides descriptions of Hue and of his audience with King Thu-Duc of Annam when the exchange of a treaty with France sealed the fate of Annam, the middle part of present-day Vietnam. Charles Lemire presents an overview of the rich Cham monuments, virtually the only remnants left of an indigenous culture displaced by the Vietnamese. Finally, after France marched into the northern part of Vietnam, then called Tonkin, it took development firmly in hand and established railway lines, roads, and educational and administrative buildings and systems. Gaston Cahen saw these developments in 1905 and reported on them and the ideas behind them. The reports are richly illustrated with engravings and period photographs.

Vann, Michael G. & Joel Montague; Colonial Good Life, the
This book reproduces and analyzes a collection of crucial primary documents from the early Twentieth-Century. These simple yet rich visual sources provide us with a clever insight into the nature of the colonial order of things. Joyeux was a French artist who served in the colonial service as an art teacher and school administrator. Living primarily in and around Saigon, he captured many aspects of daily life in the French colony in a series of humorous, critical, and, at times, somber cartoons. Taking on individuals such as corrupt civil servants, decadent plantation owners, and scheming Vietnamese housekeepers, his pen and ink drawings spared few. Despite this, he never lost his humanity and empathy. As a member of the community he studied, Joyeux offers the reader an informed analysis of French colonial society from the inside. In addition to translating the cartoon captions, Vann and Montague provide an introductory essay and explications of each image.

Nong Quoc Binh & Michael C. Howard; Cultural Revival and the Peoples of Ta Van Commune, Sa Pa, Northern Vietnam
Cultural Revival and the Peoples of Ta Van Commune, Sa Pa, Northern Vietnam includes 20 chapters mainly by Vietnamese authors associated with the Vietnamese Ethnic Minorities Arts and Literature Association describing the cultural traditions of the Hmong, Dao, and Giay people of Ta Van Commune, located near the important tourist center of Sa Pa. The chapters also discuss efforts to revive and sustain these traditions. Several of the chapters describe local festivals, musical instruments, and songs. Attention is also paid to the history of tourism in the area and to efforts to link cultural revival to economic development through tourism. The text is accompanied by 49 color photographs.

Osborne, Milton E.; French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia:, The
This pioneering study of the first five decades of French colonial presence in southern Vietnam (Cochinchina) and Cambodia has been described as “indispensable” in relation to Cambodia’s history and “fascinating” for its account of the rise of a French-backed Vietnamese elite in Cochinchina. Drawing on previously neglected archival sources in Paris, Phnom Penh and Saigon, the book shows that the effects of French policies were sharply different in the two regions. In southern Vietnam, France’s policy of direct rule created a new and important class of collaborators, men who were ready to work with the French and who gained materially from the colonial presence. In Cambodia by contrast, France preserved the king’s symbolic importance, despite stripping him of real power, a fact that was to be of great importance later in the twentieth century. It deals with a broad range of issues, including administration, law and education, and penning vivid portraits of individuals of great interest, on both sides of the colonial divide.

Nguyen Xuan Hien; Glutinous-Rice-Eating Tradition in Vietnam
This study presents, on a multi-disciplinary basis, the fabulous role of glutinous rice in day-to-day life and in ceremonial festivities and religious manifestations. The author sums up his four decades of research and cross-checks with documents and eyewitnesses both past and present, and with polls, surveys and interviews performed recently. All these are supported by sayings, proverbs, lullabies, folksongs and folktales from North to South Vietnam and, to some extent, in various neighboring countries where local people share with the Vietnamese their traditional ways of preparing multiple specialties, types of gruel, soups, porridges, cakes in endless kinds of shapes and colors but the key ingredient remains glutinous rice. The Vietnamese bánh giây is closely linked to the Japanese mochi, the Chinese nian gao; the budbud in Mindanao (the Philippines) and makes us remember the Indonesian lemper, the Vietnamese bánh tét, the Thai khao tom khon; moreover, the way to drink ruou cân in Central Highlands (Vietnam) does not differ in the manner of the pangasi feast in Palawan (the Philippines). Diversity fades before unity. The factual item that unifies Southeastern Asians with one another is, among others, glutinous rice. The modernization and globalization in the new millennium cannot challenge the throne of this sacred rice because only through offerings with this rice can the prayers communicate with Gods and Buddhas.

Schliesinger, Joachim; Hill Tribes of Vietnam Vol. 1
This volume describes the diversity of lifestyles and cultures of the mountain peoples. Untouched by commercial development and modern attitudes for decades, most of the tribesmen sustain their traditions. Their natural surroundings are occupied by spirits and genies. Village and house construction, agricultural activities, weddings, child births, sickness, death and many more everyday situations are influenced by spiritual beliefs. This first volume introduces the ethnography and the classification of the hill tribe groups in Vietnam and presents a general overview of the habitation, social structure, government policy, education, health care, swidden farming, opium cultivation, religion and traditional customs. 254 illustrations accompany the text.

Schliesinger, Joachim; Hill Tribes of Vietnam Vol. 2
The book deals with the tribal customs and habits of all 50 mountain peoples living in Vietnam. This volume describes the history, costumes and crafts, design of houses and villages, agricultural activities and the economy, society and religious practices of each individual group. The variety of their traditions is shown in 229 illustrations.

Baudesson, Henry; Indo-China and Its Primitive People
A lively report published by Captain Henry Baudesson in 1932 upon returning from years of work in the interior of Vietnam on various French colonial public works. The author lived for years among the Moïs, which means “savages” in Vietnamese, who comprise several hill tribes. He also spent considerable time with the Cham, the curious remnants of the great Mohammedan Champa state. The book is lavishly illustrated with period photographs of these hill people and their customs in which captain Baudesson took a special interest. Their social life and religious rites are placed in the wider context of studies of primitive peoples in other parts of the world. Baudesson’s descriptions of their art and culture are characterized by great respect for those who would soon suffer so much from the growing influence of colonial ventures brought by way of the railway line on which he was himself working.

Abadie, Maurice; Minorities of the Sino-Vietnamese Borderland with Special Reference to Thai Tribes
This overview presents comprehensive ethnographic introductions to the tribes found in northern Vietnam and China’s Yunnan Province. A brief sketch of historical migration patterns and ethnic affiliations with tribes in Yunnan is provided and a systematic overview given of many tribes of each of four main groups, the Thai, Man (Yao), Meo, and Lolo. Maurice Abadie, a French officer in the Muong Khuong-Pha Long region of the Sino-Vietnamese border (northwest of Lao Kay) just before the First World War, furnishes first-hand information. He discusses each tribe’s origins and settlement, physical characteristics, family life and ancestral cults, livelihood and farming methods, customs related to marriage, childbirth, and death, and trade and crafts, with special reference to textiles. The study includes detailed descriptions of every group, supported by 120 unique photographs. Abadie also discusses the growing Chinese and Vietnamese influence that would unmistakably modernize these tribes that today mostly preserve only their special costumes as the inalienable characteristic of their original identity.

Sidel, Mark; Old Hanoi
Beginning as a small fishing village along the Hong (Red) River, Hanoi has developed through the centuries into the graceful city that is today the political and cultural capital of Vietnam. Seized by the French in 1882, it served as the capital of Tonkin, France’s protectorate in northern Vietnam and was the site of lengthy anti-colonial struggles that resulted in the departure of the French in 1954. Vietnamese, Chinese, French, and later Soviet influences have significantly affected the cityscape and physical geography of Hanoi. Traces of Hanoi’s imperial city remain, including the vibrant old city of thirty-six ancient streets, shrines, pagodas, and traditional shophouses. Hanoi is also home to Asia’s finest examples of French colonial architecture, faded but still standing after decades of war and bombing, wrenching conflicts and transformations.

Ehlers, Otto E.; On Horseback Through Indochina Vol. 3:
The third volume of this trilogy reports on the journey starting in Poofang on the border between the Sipsong Pana, now Yunnan, and French Tonkin. Ehlers travels an unusual route between the Black and the Red River and through the tea districts on the Vietnamese-Chinese border, passing through all major settlements of the time: Phong Tho, Barat, Laichau, Lao Kai, Trai Hut, Hong Hoa, Sontay, Hanoi, and Haiphong. Considered a spy by the French officers in Tonkin, Ehlers was forced to continue part of his journey by junk on the Red River down to Hanoi. He then sailed to Da Nang, Saigon, and Singapore, from where he visited the Sultanate of Johore, and onwards to Siam as the guest of H.M. King Chulalongkorn at Koh Si Chang. He also visited Bangkok, Bang Pa In, and Ayutthaya. Ehlers insightfully, mercilessly, and humorously dissects what he sees: the true state of the Black Thai irregular troops guarding the country between the Black River and the Red River against Black Flag pirates, the colorful costumes and customs of various tribesmen, trade on the Red River and across the Yunnanese borders, the felt need for railway lines in the Shan States and Tonkin, the coal mines of Hongai, the steamers and sailing ships of Rickmers in the Orient, foreign government advisers traveling to idleness in Siam, the livelihood of the Bangkok Siamese, the comings and goings in Sampeng, Bangkok’s Chinese district, Siamese theater, the cremation grounds for the poor at Wat Saket, and many other colorful descriptions cast in Ehler’s own brand of travelogue writing.

Morice, A.; People and Wildlife in and Around Saigon (1872-1873)
A report on Dr Morice’s posting in the then newly-acquired colony of France, Cochinchina. Since the author took a special interest in snakes and insects, attention is paid especially to these. Dr Morice also elaborates on the local people and their customs, including the Chinese merchants in Saigon and on the diseases most commonly occurring. A number of local customs and festivities are described through the tinted spectacles of a colonialist Frenchman. Dr Morice also traveled the smaller towns of the Delta extensively, and contributes to our knowledge of the terrain before the French commenced their culturally damaging, large-scale intervention.

Robequain, Charles; Photographic Impressions of French Indochina: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in 1930
A photographic sketch of the colonies and protectorates the French established around the turn of the century and the budding exploitation of those colonies. Indochinese architecture, landscapes, and people in their daily activities are shown in 203 magnificent photographs from the 1930s. The journey covers the present-day countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The text, in English, includes a brief introduction to the specific characteristics and history of each country. The photographs also include monuments of Champa, an extinct culture on the coast of Central Vietnam. Tribal people from various regions are shown in their traditional costumes.

Doling, Tim; Railways of Tramways of Viet Nam, the
The Railways and Tramways of Việt Nam is the result of two years of research and is the first in-depth English language history of Việt Nam’s rail and tram networks, from their inception to the present day. Drawing on both French and Vietnamese archival materials__many only recently made available to foreign researchers__and incorporating over 350 images and maps both in black-and-white and in colour, the book provides a unique insight into the development of rail transportation in French Indochina and the crucial role played the railways during the First and Second Indochina Wars. Bringing the story up to date, it also examines the development of the national railway network since reunification in 1975 and the Vietnamese government’s ambitious plans to transform the railway landscape by creating a modern and competitive main-line and urban rail network. With its fascinating subject matter, The Railways and Tramways of Việt Nam will be of interest not only to railway enthusiasts, researchers and historians, but also to the average visitor to this captivating country. It will also be an essential tool for the “platform-end” rail fan, with appendices containing locomotive technical data, running numbers and depot allocations, a complete station/km listing for all operational Vietnamese railway lines and a directory of key contacts in the Vietnamese railway sector, including diesel depots and stabling points.

Terzani, Tiziano; Saigon 1975: Three Days and There Months
This book reminds us of the fall of Saigon and the defeat of the Americans in South Vietnam. Many people today visit Vietnam and in the back of their minds they connect that country with a long, painful war that happened many years ago. But how did that war end? Here is a unique eye-witness account of that dramatic, epochal event written by a journalist who had been in Indochina as a war correspondent for over four years when, on April 27, 1975, he slipped back into Saigon. The city, surrounded by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces, was in panic and thousands of people were trying to escape. Foreigners, including most journalists were soon evacuated by American planes, ships and helicopters that landed on rooftops just before the communists moved in. Terzani decided to stay and he reported on the next ninety-four days: the last-ditch negotiation attempts, the panicked US evacuation, the precipitous conquest of Saigon, the anxious waiting for a bloodbath that never came, and the first signs of transformation and reconstruction. Terzani, whose reports of the takeover at Doc Lap Palace on April 30, 1975, were the first news-bulletins out of the new Vietnam, brings an informed passion to this exclusive story. He provides dramatic revelations about the last few days of the American presence: how the Americans blocked negotiations to gain time for their own evacuation, the story behind the abortive baby-lift, the unmasking of agents on both sides. He offers an incisive picture of Saigon waiting, of the Americans escaping, of communist troops marching triumphantly into the city center shouting “Giai Phong! Giai Phong!” “Liberation! Liberation!”

Neis, P.; Sino-Vietnamese Border Demarcation, 1885-1887
The book reports on the work of the French and Chinese delegation which together formed the Border Demarcation Commission set up after the Franco-Chinese war (by the Treaty of Tien-Tsin, 9 June 1885) to determine and mark the borders between China and Tonkin, France’s newest possession in the Far East. Besides reporting on the work of demarcation, Dr Neis reports briefly on the people and regions he passed through. He also provides a sketch of relations between local Chinese traders, lower-ranking mandarins on both sides of the border, and the Annamites and hill tribes of the border regions.

Fitz Gerald, C. P.; Southern Expansion of the Chinese People, The
Since the beginning of reliable historical evidence, Chinese influence, culture, and power have always moved southward. In the first part of this book, FitzGerald details how Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma had all, to varying degrees, come under the influence of and acknowledged the power of China. Malaya, Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, which never actually owed allegiance to China, nonetheless also experienced China’s influence and power. China’s political influence in Southeast Asia declined when southward territorial expansion ended with the rise of the Manchu Dynasty in 1664. Later, a massive migration of individual Chinese resulted in the large minorities of Chinese that can still be found in many Southeast Asian countries today. In the second part of his book, the author examines the cultural, economic, and political effects of this migration on the countries concerned and their implications for the future. Many of FitzGerald’s comments are prescient and pertinent today, and the book presents vital historical facts which need to be taken into account in any assessment of the probable future of the area. The secret Chinese expansion into Burma and the Andaman Sea confirms the projection the author made 30 years ago.

Vassal, Gabrielle M.; Three Years in Vietnam (1907-1910)
This doctor’s wife diaries cover a great number of aspects of the life of Vietnamese, Cham and hill tribe people around Nhatrang as well as that of the life of a French medical doctor and his wife in colonial Vietnam. Gabrielle Vassal, a British national, had a good eye for the position of women and for daily household life and used her keen sense of observation and inquiry to analyze what she saw. The Vassals engage in the usual touristic and health excursions to the Langbian plateau with its agricultural station, but also in big game hunting, at that time still acceptable. The book provides a good overview of local ceremonies, superstitions and beliefs, and of the medical issues confronting the administration. This book’s descriptions are greatly enhanced by more than one hundred extremely rare period photographs of all aspects of the life of these peoples and of some of the old Cham monuments in Nhatrang.

Johnson, Wray R.; Vietnam and American Doctrine for Small Wars
This work is the first comprehensive treatment of the evolution of U.S. military doctrine for countering guerillas and other irregular forces in small wars. Since its inception, the United States has been engaged in small wars, or low intensity conflict, and has contested irregular opponents in each. The end of World War II ushered in what has since become known as the “counterinsurgency era”, its genesis arguably the containment strategy of the Truman Doctrine of 1947, upon which policy-makers and military planners constructed rudimentary counterinsurgency doctrine for combating communist guerrillas in Greece. Yet Vietnam was the real test for counter-insurgency doctrine, and the war in Vietnam has remained the touchstone for American involvement in small wars ever since. With the end of the Vietnam War, small wars doctrine has risen or fallen according to the perceived threat to the national security interests of the United States, concurrent with the success or failure of scholars and military professionals in persuading the national security bureaucracy to make qualitative changes in doctrine and force structure. In that light, this study examines the roots of American military doctrine for small wars and its subsequent evolution from “counterinsurgency” in the 1960s to “stability and support operations” in the 1990s, and concludes with an analysis of the legacy of Vietnam and the implications for emergent military doctrine in the post-Cold War era.

Hocquard, Edouard; War and Peace in Hanoi and Tonkin
This work is the field report of a French medical doctor serving in the Franco-Chinese war over Tonkin and Annam in the period 1884-1885. The book reports the conditions under which this war was fought in the plains and hills of North Vietnam and describes a number of skirmishes between French and Chinese troops. However, Dr Édouard Hocquard was much more than an army doctor of the first class, with the rank of major, actively engaged in caring for wounded soldiers, he was also a keen observer of the customs and beliefs of the Vietnamese. His attention was especially focused on social issues and the livelihood of the Vietnamese, but he was also a meticulous observer of natural history. Numerous splendid, and previously unpublished, plates of scenes of peace and war in the Vietnamese countryside and of picturesque towns make for a colorful and worthy addition to Dr Hocquard’s descriptions.

Adams, Sam; War of Numbers
A memoir of Adams’ struggle to inform the American public that they were being mislead by the CIA about the state of the war.

Ma Huana; Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan: The Overall Survey of
Ma Huan’s descriptions are based on personal observation of twenty countries from Champa (Central Vietnam) in the East to Mecca in the West. Ma Huan was the Muslim interpreter of the famous Cheng Ho, commander of the Chinese Fleet. Of the sources for the history of southern Asia during the 15th century, the Chinese authorities are the most rewarding, and of these the most informative and interesting is Ma Huan. The 15th century was the heroic age of Chinese naval expansion; four Chinese fleets traversed the Indian Ocean simultaneously, and flotillas explored “the four seas” from southern Africa to Timor. The imperial court was thronged with royal visitors or envoys from 70 foreign countries from Japan to Hormuz, and Chinese manufactures were sought after in the markets of Asia from Majapahit to Baghdad. This new translation is based on the definitive text established by the eminent Chinese scholar Feng Ch’eng-Chun and first published in 1935. Mr. Mills’ introduction contains accounts of Cheng Ho’s expeditions and Ma Huan’s book. Eight appendices treat peripheral topics, mainly geographical and nautical; a gazetteer records the names of some 700 places known to the Chinese when their golden age of exploration ended in 1433; with the aid of printed and manuscript sailing directions, an attempt is made to explain about 600 names and legends in the remarkable maritime cartogram (“Mao K’un Map”) published in the Wu Pei Chih, and to trace the stages of voyages made, inter alia, through the Singapore Strait, from Sumatra to Ceylon (Pieh-lo-li, Beruwala), and from Malacca to China. This text obtains new significance for what is not in it: this classic Chinese text shows no historical evidence to support Chinese claims to the Spratlys.