The Shift in historical perception from tradition to modern in Viet Nam in the early twentieth century

By Vũ Thị Thu Thanh
DOI: 10.37550/tdmu.EJS/2021.01.152

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the intelligentsia of the colonial countries and ones being threatened by Western colonial dominance in Asia began to re-perceive the problems of sovereignty, nation-state, and re-ask questions like "What is history for?" as well as review what previous historians wrote about their national history. From re-realizing history and rewriting history according to new perspectives, historiography in these countries has shifted from "traditional" to "modern" with taking Western science as the main direction. Vietnamese historiography is also not out of that general change. Examining the product of historical books at the beginning of the twentieth century, Phan Boi Chau is considered as the pioneer historian for that historiographical turn. The article focuses on analyzing the new historical viewpoints of Phan Boi Chau from the global perspective of the flow of thought in Asian countries at that time.