"One of the most valuable aspects ... is the author's effort to bring a range of Vietnamese scholarship and commentary into the English language literature." --Pacific Affairs, Spring 2002

This book explores in anthropological terms the cultural identity of the people of the Vietnamese South since the Vietnam War ended. The author describes southern Vietnam's postwar history, the impact of political and economic changes, policies towards music and popular culture, shifts in state ideology, and the contrasting fortunes of urban and rural communities. Philip Taylor spent a considerable time in a Mekong delta village undertaking ethnographic research into rural cultural identity. He describes the villagers' view of history and their sense of present decline, contrasting this with state and urban interpretations of the southern region's "modernity" over the same period.

For sale only in the U.S., its dependencies, Canada, and Mexico.

Philip Taylor is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Departments of Anthropology and Asian Studies, University of Western Australia.