This book analyzes the role of Đại Việt (Vietnam) in the maritime Asian trading network of the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries as it systematically integrates the results of archaeological investigations. The first half of the book consolidates reports from excavations conducted at Vân Đồn and Phố Hiến, trading ports of Đại Việt, incorporating sophisticated archaeological techniques distinctive of Japan in the presentations of the data. These are accompanied by precise scale drawings, detailed classifications, and quantitative analyses of unearthed artifacts. The latter half of the book discusses the materials discovered in archaeological investigations, specifically ceramics and coins, in terms of the relations among sites and networks of production, distribution, and consumption, from a broader Asian geohistorical perspective. To this end, the diplomatic policies and trading activities of each era in Vietnam are discussed, integrating the results of archaeological investigations with studies of historical documents. Expanding beyond Vietnam, results of the archaeological investigations in other maritime Asian countries, such as Japan, Indonesia, Laos, and the Philippines, are introduced, to inform a comparative study that combines all such data from both archaeology and history in a single volume as materials for broader discussion. This book is expected to contribute to international academic discourse on the history of maritime Asia and help open a new phase of scholarly endeavor in this field.

This book analyzes the role of Đại Việt (Vietnam) in the maritime Asian trading network of the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries as it systematically integrates the results of archaeological investigations. The first half of the book consolidates reports from excavations conducted at Vân Đồn and Phố Hiến, trading ports of Đại Việt, incorporating sophisticated archaeological techniques distinctive of Japan in the presentations of the data. These are accompanied by precise scale drawings, detailed classifications, and quantitative analyses of unearthed artifacts. The latter half of the book discusses the materials discovered in archaeological investigations, specifically ceramics and coins, in terms of the relations among sites and networks of production, distribution, and consumption, from a broader Asian geohistorical perspective. To this end, the diplomatic policies and trading activities of each era in Vietnam are discussed, integrating the results of archaeological investigations with studies of historical documents. Expanding beyond Vietnam, results of the archaeological investigations in other maritime Asian countries, such as Japan, Indonesia, Laos, and the Philippines, are introduced, to inform a comparative study that combines all such data from both archaeology and history in a single volume as materials for broader discussion. This book is expected to contribute to international academic discourse on the history of maritime Asia and help open a new phase of scholarly endeavor in this field.

This book brings something new in both dimension and detail to our understanding of Southeast Asia from the first to the fourteenth centuries. It puts Southeast Asia in the context of the international trade that stretched from Rome to China and draws upon a wide range of recent scholarship in history and the social sciences to redefine the role that this trade played in the evolution of the classical states of Southeast Asia. By examining the sources of Southeast Asia's classical era with the tools of modern economic history, the author shows that well-developed socioeconomic and political networks existed in Southeast Asia before significant foreign economic penetration took place. With the growth of interest in Southeast Asian commodities and the refocusing of the major East-West commercial routes through the region during the early centuries of the Christian era, internal conditions within Southeast Asia adjusted to accommodate increased external contacts. Hall takes the view that Southeast Asia's response to international trade was a reflection of preexisting patterns of trade and statecraft. In the forty years since Coede's monumental work The Indianized States of Southeast Asia was published, a great deal of archaeological and epigraphical work has been done and new interpretations advanced. By integrating new theoretical constructs, recent archaeological finds and interpretations, and his own informed reading and research, Kenneth R. Hall puts his historical narrative on a large canvas and treats areas not previously brought together for discussion along comparative lines. Like Coedes' work, his book will be important as a basic text for the teaching of early Southeast Asian history.

'The essential source for scholarly reassessment of the Asia-Pacific region's diverse and significant archaeology and history. James P. Delgado, coauthor of The Maritime Landscape of the Isthmus of Panam� Underpins a nuanced picture of Asia-Pacific that shows how the activities of the Chinese and Japanese in East Asia, the spread of Islam from South Asia, and the efforts of the Iberians and especially the Spanish from southern Europe ushered in a world of complex interaction and rapid and often profound change in local, regional, and wider cultural patterns. Ian Lilley, editor of Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands The history of Asia-Pacific since 1500 has traditionally been told with Europe as the main player ushering in a globalized, capitalist world. But these volumes help decentralize that global history, revealing that preexisting trade networks and local authorities influenced the region before and long after Europeans arrived. In the volume The Southwest Pacific and Oceanian Regions, case studies from Alofi, Vanuatu, the Marianas, Hawai'i, Guam, and Taiwan compare the development of colonialism across different islands. Contributors discuss human settlement before the arrival of Dutch, French, British, and Spanish explorers, tracing major exchange routes that were active as early as the tenth century. They highlight rarely examined sixteenth- and seventeenth-century encounters between indigenous populations and Europeans and draw attention to how cross-cultural interaction impacted the local peoples of Oceania. The volume The Asia-Pacific Region looks at colonialism in the Philippines, China, Japan, and Vietnam, emphasizing the robust trans-regional networks that existed before European contact. Southeast Asia had long been influenced by Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim traders in ways that helped build the region's ethnic and political divisions. Essays show the complexity and significance of maritime trade during European colonization by investigating galleon wrecks in Manila, Japan's porcelain exports, and Spanish coins discovered off China's coast. Packed with archaeological and historical evidence from both land and underwater sites, impressive in geographical scope, and featuring perspectives of scholars from many different countries and traditions, these volumes illuminate the often misunderstood nature of early colonialism in Asia-Pacific.

The Cham people once inhabited and ruled over a large stretch of what is now the central Vietnamese coast. Written by specialists in history, archaeology, anthropology, art history, and linguistics, these essays reassess the ways that the Cham have been studied.

While most historians of the Vietnam War focus on the origins of U.S. involvement and the Americanization of the conflict, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued the war and American intervention ended. This riveting narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta to the bomb-saturated Red River Delta, from the corridors of power in Hanoi and Saigon to the Nixon White House, and from the peace negotiations in Paris to high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow, all to reveal that peace never had a chance in Vietnam. Hanoi's War renders transparent the internal workings of America's most elusive enemy during the Cold War and shows that the war fought during the peace negotiations was bloodier and much more wide ranging than it had been previously. Using never-before-seen archival materials from the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as materials from other archives around the world, Nguyen explores the politics of war-making and peace-making not only from the North Vietnamese perspective but also from that of South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, presenting a uniquely international portrait.