In recent decades, archeological discoveries have improved our understanding of prehistoric and early historic cultures of southern China. Therefore Erica Fox Brindley chooses the “Yue” of the ancient southern frontier as a foil, as the other, in her innovative and convincing investigation of perception of ethnic self-identity: what did it mean in ancient China to be “Chinese,” or, as she prefers, “Hua-xia” 華夏 or “Zhu-xia” 諸夏 (p. 10). And what is “Vietnamese”?

Brindley's criteria for ethnicity are: a shared myth of descent, a shared association with a specific territory, and a shared sense of culture (pp. 6–7). This definition of ethnicity is distinct from nationality, kinship, and language. Chinese civilization has always been multilingual.

Brindley teases information and implications out of references to “Yue” (also Yi 夷, who included the Yue) that are scattered in works from the Analects to Shiji and Hanshu. (I appreciate the addition of the...

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