A Traditional Vietnam: Economy and Society Through Oral Lenses

Historians, sociologists and economists often complained that there are not enough written documents about the economy and society of early Vietnam. On the contrary, Vietnamese oral sources are full of details on how people socialized and made a living out of the recourses available to them during certain periods in Vietnamese history. This book fills the gap in the history books by analyzing oral sources from the earliest time, when fishing was the major means of living, to early twentieth century, when trading was flourished. Different from other authors, who only provided excerpts of a text when they discuss Vietnamese society, this book provides most of the texts in entirety, enabling the readers to enjoy the aesthetic aspect of an oral source while gaining their understanding of the Vietnamese economy and society.