The Tây Son Uprising: Society and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam
George Dutton

ISBN 978 974 9511 54 1
2008. 14x21.5 cm, 304pp, 300g
B695

The Tây S?n uprising (1771–1802) was a cataclysmic event that profoundly altered the eighteenth-century Vietnamese political and social landscape. This groundbreaking book offers a new look at an important and controversial era. George Dutton follows three brothers from the hamlet of Tây S?n as they led a heterogeneous military force that ousted ruling families in both halves of the divided Vietnamese territories and eventually toppled the 350-year-old Lê dynasty. Supplementing Vietnamese primary sources with extensive use of archival European missionary accounts, he explores the dynamics of an event that affected every region of the country and every level of society. Tracing the manner in which the Tây S?n leaders transformed an inchoate uprising into a new political regime, Dutton challenges common depictions of the Tây S?n brothers as visionaries or revolutionaries. Instead, he reveals them as political opportunists whose worldview remained constrained by their provincial origins and the exigencies of ongoing warfare and political struggles.

Dutton uses the Tây S?n movement as a lens through which to examine the complex social dynamics precipitated by events of the period. Most notably, he shows how enthusiastic peasant support for the Tây S?n brothers’ early promises to end corruption, abolish unjust taxation, and redistribute wealth quickly faded when confronted by the harsh realities of life under a regime constantly at war. In addition to rebel leaders and peasants, he examines groups living at the margins of eighteenth-century Vietnamese society: outlaws, pirates, upland and coastal ethnic groups, and Vietnamese Christians. Each of these played important roles in the Tây S?n era—roles often overlooked or misrepresented in previous studies.

This absorbing work, the first detailed English-language study of the Tây S?n uprising, provides a detailed portrait of one of the most complex periods of early modern Vietnamese history. It reveals a heterogeneous society in transition and a divided state moving along a difficult path toward greater integration. Readers interested in Asian popular uprisings, early modern social history, and the contested interactions between state and society will find this an engaging and balanced study.

George Dutton is assistant professor in the ucla Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and chair of the ucla Interdepartmental Program in Southeast Asian Studies.