"Colonial" and "Postcolonial" Views of Vietnam's Pre-history

Until recently, northern Vietnam was believed to be a receiver or a loan culture of a unidirectional diffusion and migration from the advanced Chinese civilization. By the early 1980s, a new prehistory of northern Vietnam was becoming increasingly apparent. Yet, new discoveries by both Vietnamese and Western scholars possess existing biases. Interestingly, as a response to the above, today's Western scholars are attempting to "rescue" the "casualties" of nationalist history in Vietnam. However, it is not clear whether this new schema would only carve out a topic of expertise for Western historians or only further marginalize particular Vietnamese nationalist histories that did not necessarily constrain "independent histories".