Giang Nguyen-Thu has written the deepest study about television in postwar Vietnam. True, the book is limited by a focus on programming in northern Vietnam at the expense of programming in the south. True, too, that it examines five case studies without giving enough contextualization to other programs. Allowing for these and other limitations, Television in Post-Reform Vietnam offers a rich theoretical analysis of a significant yet understudied development in postwar Vietnam. There have been some studies, notably from Lisa Drummond, on television in the post-Reform era. This monograph not only surpasses the quality of earlier scholarship but also opens a large door for further research in media studies, the social sciences, and history.
Central to its analysis is the Vietnamese nation, which is discussed at length in the introduction. Following partially from the works of Shawn McHale and Philip Taylor, Nguyen-Thu argues for a more diffuse, ambivalent, and localized...
