Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in VietnamA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. Bibliotactics examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Comprising government bureaucrats, library personnel, journalists, and everyday library readers, this colonial public debated the role of libraries as educational resource, civilizing instrument, and literary heritage. Moving beyond procolonial or anticolonial nationalism framings, Bibliotactics advances a relational theory of power that centers public reading culture contextualized within the library infrastructure of the colonial information order. As the first comprehensive history of the colonial and national library in Asia, this book contributes new insights into publicity, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the histories of Vietnam, libraries, and information. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Building Libraries and a Colonial Information Order | 16 |
Infrastructures of Public Reading Culture | 56 |
Libraries as Vehicles of Cultural Propaganda | 100 |
Bình Dân Thư Viện and Vietnamese Language Nationalism | 132 |
The Decolonization of Libraries | 170 |
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Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam Cindy Anh Nguyen No preview available - 2026 |
Common terms and phrases
Albert Sarraut Annam Archives and Libraries Báo Bảo Đại bibliobus bibliothèques borrowed Bouchot building Cambodia chữ nôm circulating libraries colonial library colonial period Confucian cultural propaganda DABI Direction des archives Directorate of Archives documentation Đông Dutch East Indies folder France Franco-Vietnamese French and Vietnamese French colonial French Indochina Hanoi and Saigon Hanoi Central Library Hanoi library Indochina War Indochinese infrastructure institutions intellectual l'Indochine language legal deposit lending section librarians library and archives library collections Library in Hanoi literary literature lưu trữ quốc Minh modern National Library newspapers Ngô Đình Ngô Đình Nhu Nguyễn Paul Boudet personnel Phạm Phnom Penh Phương Pierre Pasquier political popular postcolonial provinces public library published quốc ngữ reading matter sách Saigon Cochinchina Library Saigon Library Saint-Marty social tâm lưu trữ Thị tion Tonkin Trung tâm lưu TTLTQG1 University Press urban Vayrac Việt Vietnamese readers