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Monologue, Dialogue, and Tran Vietnam

Author
Wolters, O. W.
Abstract
O. W. Wolters was a twentieth-century historian of early Southeast Asia
who began his academic career with the study of early commercial
relations in the Malay world and the maritime empire of Srivijaya, which
dominated the Straits of Malacca and neighboring seas for several
centuries. During the last twenty-five years of his life, he became
interested in the Tran dynasty of Vietnam (1225-1400). From 1976 to 1996,
he published twelve articles about the Tran dynasty. When he died in 2000,
he left a nearly-completed manuscript of a book-length work about that
dynasty, which is herewith made available to the world of readers.
What makes this manuscript particularly interesting is how the author
shaped a work of historical research into what he liked to call a novel.
He became convinced that there was a certain way of thinking and speaking
that was distinctive to educated people in the Tran period, and he
believed that the best way to present this was through conversational
dialogue. He further presents the Tran way of thinking as a critical
perspective on the regimes that followed.
This manuscript also contains self-reflexive meditations on what the
author was endeavoring to achieve and his critique of his success in doing
so. He offers readers a rare glimpse into the craftsmanship of the most
creative and adventurous scholar of early Southeast Asia in his
generation.
Description
A manuscript comprised of materials completed by O. W. Wolters before his death.
Date Issued
2009-07-16Subject
Tran Vietnam
Type
book