Pascal Bourdeaux is a historian of religion who focuses on the religions of southern Vietnam. His newest monograph presents a compelling analysis of Hòa Hảo Buddhism in the last decade and a half of French colonial domination.
In the introduction, the author proposes three main themes that he aims to develop and to analyze: the challenges of a millenarian movement normalizing relations with the surrounding region, the appearance of a new religion in the historical context of a revolutionary cycle and a war of national liberation, and the centrality of the religious reality of the Hòa Hảo rarely acknowledged in national histories. The book fully responds to these proposed themes with a large and comprehensive accumulation of archival evidence and an impeccable analytical method involving fieldwork.
No other comparable study of this topic exists. The book prompts reevaluations of modern Vietnam, especially of the great diversity demonstrated by southern politics,...
