Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society

Luong, Hy V. (ed.) Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society. Oxford and Singapore: Bowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003, 336 pp.

The editor begins his volume with an overview chapter in which he observes that "For more than half a century, in popular Western images, Vietnam has been seen as a war-ravaged and poverty stricken country. War ravaged, Vietnam has undoubtedly been... (and) poor Vietnam has also been." (p. 1). But, as notes, from 1986 to the onset of the Asian financial crisis (during the late 1990s), Vietnam's economy grew steadily and substantially but progress was accompanied by distribution inequities, endemic poverty and environmental degradation. Material improvements and the social and environmental problems that accompanied them occurred because substantial societal transformation took place. He argues that "The transformation of Vietnamese society and the changes in state policies cannot be fully understood without a full consideration of social dynamics and the nature of statesociety relations in contemporary Vietnam." (p. 25)

Based upon his introductory observation the author organizes his volume around nine themes including the relationships between authorities and people; economic transition and uneven development; demographics; the treatment of minorities and environmental gender and religious issues and the Vietnamese passion for modernity. The book's contents are the product of scholars who have substantial experience in Vietnam, and an equally substantial record of published scholarship about the country and its people. Their essays concentrate on bringing to readers an understanding of disparities among regions as well as an emerging unrest that is becoming progressively more apparent in both urban and rural areas.

The volume's primary strengths are two fold: first, the essays are well written and well edited. The chapters are, without exception, content-laden and deal with substantive topics. second, the framework set out by the editor, and his brief summary of each topic covered in succeeding chapters, permits the reader to attain a sense the continuity within the book even though a wide variety of topics are investigated. In order to stay within space limits, two essays contained in the book are specifically cited but keep in mind that each chapter is well worth the reader's attention.

Benedict Kerkvliet's "Authorities and the People: An Analysis of State-Society Relations in Vietnam," does not try to present an elaborate distinction between what is the state and what is society. Instead it moves directly to the relations between state and society in key arenas. "The arenas can be specific places but may also include organizations, groups, policies, and controversies" (p. 49) and they are governing institutions and processes, mass media, agricultural collectives, and corruption. He presents a scholarly interpretation of the literature on politics and state relations in Vietnam stressing how the country's political system works and whether it fosters state-society relations that are appropriate to the interests of the Vietnamese people. Kerkvliet's analysis leads him to conclude that, "The tendency during the last twenty years has been to reduce and change the scope of what the state should do in the economy and other aspects of society." (p. 49) The result is that in general people have now more personal space in their social and religious lives without directly interacting with the state but where the state allows citizens little room to establish their own organizations in order to speak and act publicly.

In his chapter titled "Gender Relations: Ideologies, Kinship Practices and Political Economy," the editor reminds readers that a substantial number of Vietnamese live within a very limited "personal space" because of the circumstances of their birth. For example, young women and girls borne to low income parents find that their freedom to choose is minimized by gender and poverty-including in the choice of a spouse. The most poignant part of the book is a description of the dreadful scenes of a "spouse market" wherein "... hundreds of young women, mostly from the lower Mekong delta, sit or stand around waiting for wife-buying Taiwanese. This chaotic and pitiful scene takes place in...Ho Chi Minh City." (p.213). The chapter describes street corners full of motor-cycle drivers, cellular telephones constantly ringing and eventually "suppliers driving off with two or three potentially "lucky" young women. For girls who are not so fortunate, their "matrons" often warn them that they must work as beer bar girls or as a prostitutes to earn money to pay their families debts.

With this sobering account of lives led by Vietnamese left behind in the wake of Vietnam's progress since "doi moi," this reviewer recommends enthusiastically and without reservation Hy V. Luong's work both to general readers and to scholars whose specific interests include Vietnam's post-war era. The book would also be a valuable component of graduate and undergraduate courses that include foci on the transformation of previously socialist economies and societies-particularly in Southeast Asia.