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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

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Print Price: $50.99

Format:
Paperback
288 pp.
7" x 10"

ISBN-13:
9780190602697

Copyright Year:
2019

Imprint: OUP US


The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt

Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam

Michael G. Vann and Liz Clarke

The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt tells the darkly humorous story of the French colonial state's failed efforts to impose its vision of modernity upon the colonial city of Hanoi, Vietnam. This book offers a case study in the history of imperialism, highlighting the racialized economic inequalities of empire, colonization as a form of modernization, and industrial capitalism's creation of a radical power differential between "the West and the rest." On a deeper level, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt examines the contradictions unique to the French Third Republic's colonial "civilizing mission," the development of Vietnamese resistance to French rule, and the history of disease.

Readership : Undergraduates in world, colonial, Vietnamese, French, and Southeast Asian history courses.

Reviews

  • "Students will be delighted by The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt. The superb graphics and the story itself will enthrall general readers as well."
    l--J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University

  • "The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt is a captivating story! If offers an "all in one" package that makes it a practical text for a world history courses."

    --Margaret B. Bodemer, California Polytechnic State University

  • "This is beautifully written and illustrated history based on solid research. The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt does a phenomenal job of contextualizing the far reaches of the French empire in world history. Students will enjoy the graphics and the intellectual stimulation of the story. I strongly recommend it for classes in World History, historical methodology, and Southeast Asian History."

    --Christina Firpo, California Polytechnic State University

  • "The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt effectively engages its readers in the intertwined stories of French colonialism, the New Imperialism, and a Vietnam in transition during the 19th and 20th centuries in a thought-provoking and memorable blend of critical textual discussion and high quality illustration."

    --David W. Del Testa, Bucknell University

  • "The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt very usefull integrates a discussion of the civilizing mission with the history of colonial urbanism, public health, and scientific experimentation. There's very little accessible material on this in English for undergraduate students, and the text does an excellent job of translating complex historiography in a readable way."
    --Rebecca Scales, Rochester Institute of Technology

List of Maps
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I: The Graphic History
Prologue
1. A Tail of Two Cities
2. Why was Hanoi French?
3. Who Built Hanoi?
4. The Illusion or What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
5. Black Death in the White City!
6. The Great Rat Hunt
7. The Best Laid Schemes of Rats and Men
Afterword
Part II: Primary Sources
Urban Life
1. Joseph Chailley-Bert, Paul Bert au Tonkin
2. "Hanoï: Statue de Paul Bert," Pierre Dieulfils postcard
3. L'Avenir du Tonkin
4. Marius Borel, Souvenirs d'un vieux colonialist
5. Victor Le Lan, "The Old Quarters," February 5, 1898
6. Victor Le Lan, "Opium," January 16, 1897
7. "Rapport périodique sur la situation intérieure de l'Indo-Chine (1901)"
8. "Hanoï-Tonkin-Musée," Pierre Dieulefils postcard
9. Alfred Cunningham, The French in Tonkin and South China
10. "Hanoï-Tonkin-Pagodon du petit Lac," Pierre Dieulefils postcard
11. "Chinatown is a Menace to Health," The San Francisco Call, November 23, 1901
12. Gouvernement-Général de l'Indo-Chine, Ville de Hanoi (Tonkin): Historique, Développement financier, Règlementation administrative et Fonctionnement des divers services municipaux de la Ville de Hanoi, 1905
13. Alfred Meynard, "Tonkin" in Joseph Ferrière, Georges Garros, Alfred Meynard, and Alfred Raquez, L'Indo-Chine, 1906
14. Hanoi Town Hall, Dossier: 38: "Note on the development of the City of Hanoi from 1 January 1902 to 30 June 1907"
15. Brieux, Voyage aux Indes et en Indo-Chine: Simples Notes d'un Touriste
16. Michael My, Le Tonkin pittoresque: Souvenirs et impressions de voyage 1921-1922
17. Hanoi's Municipal Theater
18. M. Georges Maspero, Un empire colonial français: L'Indochine
19. Claude Farrère, Les Civilisés
20. Charles Baudelaire, "The Eyes of the Poor"
21. Phan Van Hy, "The ricksha man"
22. Laurent Joseph Gaide & Pierre Marie Durolle, La tuberculose et sa prophlylaxie en Indochine française
The Third Plague Pandemic
1. "Black Plague in Hawaii. Breaks Out in Two Islands - Situation in Honolulu Improves." Portsmouth Herald, February 24, 1900
2. "The Scourge of the Century," Lincoln County Leader, May 11, 1900
3. "Memorial of the Exclusion Convention Addressed to the President and Congress," The San Francisco Call, November 23, 1901
4. Claude Bourrin, Choses et gens en Indochine: Souvenris de bonne humeur, 1898-1908
5. Commissaire Central, "Destruction des animaux, Hanoi-Ville"
6. Dr. Le Roy Des Barres, Rapport sur la mortalité à Hanoi en 1903
7. Wood and thatch homes
8. Gouvernement-Général de l'Indo-Chine, Ville de Hanoi (Tonkin): Historique, Développement financier, Règlementation administrative et Fonctionnement des divers services municipaux de la Ville de Hanoi, 1905 (pg. 53)
9. Dr. Ortholan, "Peste en Indo-Chine. (Historique)"
10. Soup Vendor, Pierre Dieulefils postcard
11. "Battling the Plague," Los Angeles Herald, November 15, 1908
12. Laurent Joseph Gaide & Henri Desire Marie Bodet, La Peste en Indochine
13. Jacques May, Un Médecin français en Extrême-Orient
Voices of Resistance
1. Phan Trong Quang, "A ricksha man's impromptu"
2. Anonymous, "Poem on True Heroism"
3. "Tonkin-Hanoï - Les bords du Fleuve Rouge et le Pont Doumer," Pierre Dieulefils postcard
4. Anonymous, "The Asian Ballad (Chant to Raise the Consciousness of the People)"
5. Inhabitants of Hanoi to Governor General
6. Citizens of Hanoi to Governor General
7. Superior Resident of Tonkin to Governor of Indochina
8. "Tonkin - Pousse-Pousse," Pierre Dieulefils postcard
9. Phan Boi Chau, "The New Vietnam," 1907
10. Phan Chu Trinh, "Letter to Paul Beau," 1907
11. "Tonkin: Rapport Politique Générale pour l'année 1908"
12. Louis Bonnafort, Trente ans de Tonkin
13. "Rapport de GGI Sarraut au Ministre des Colonies"
14. "Paul Bert's Statues Toppled at 9:10 AM Yesterday Morning," August 2, 1945
Part III: Historical Contexts
The New Imperialism
The Imperialist Powers
China
Colonial Political Economies
Imperial Ideologies
The Realities of Colonial Rule
Western Industrial Capitalism
The Third Republic
Vietnamese Resistance: Nationalist, Communist, and Everyday
The Third Bubonic Plague Pandemic, 1855-1959
Part IV: Making of The Rat Hunt
Adventures and Boredom in the Archives
History in the Funniest of Places
History Outside of the Ivory Tower
Why a graphic history?
Finally, Vietnam
Part V: Rat Hunt in the Classroom
Discussion Questions
- The Great Rat Hunt
- Colonial History
Urban History
- Vietnamese History
History of Medicine and Disease
- China in World History
- Method and Historiography
Essay Topics
Timeline of Events in Vietnam, France, and the World
Further Resources
Suggested Histories of Vietnam
French History
Imperialism
Disease
Rats
End Notes
Glossary

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Michael G. Vann is Associate Professor of History at Sacramento State University where he teaches surveys, upper division lectures, and graduate seminars on world history, Southeast Asia, and imperialism. Vann was president of the French Colonial Historical Society from 2008 to 2010. From 2009 to 2014, he served as Vice President of the California World History Association. He is the author of The Colonial Good Life: André Joyeux's vision of French Colonial Indochina (2008), several articles on colonialism in Malacca, Malaysia, and Semarang, Indonesia, and a number of pieces in teaching Southeast Asia in world history courses in journals such as Education About Asia and the World History Association Bulletin. Vann has also published a primary source reader, Twentieth Century Voices: Readings in World History (2012). Vann is actively involved in teacher training at Sacramento State where he runs the History/Pre-Credential program. He has organized teacher training seminars for the UC Davis History Project on subjects such as imperialism and the city in world history.

Liz Clarke is a freelance artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. Her OUP graphic history co-authored with Trevor Getz, Abina and the Important Men (2011) is widely used in college courses.

Writing History - William Kelleher Storey and Towser Jones
Modern Empires: A Reader - Bonnie G. Smith
France and Its Empire Since 1870 - Alice L. Conklin, Sarah Fishman and Robert Zaretsky
Abina and the Important Men - Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke
Empires and Colonies in the Modern World - Heather Streets-Salter and Trevor R. Getz

Special Features

  • A graphic history set in the height of the New Imperialism that examines issues of empire, disease, and modernity in French colonial Hanoi.
  • Provides a fresh and unique study of the New Imperialism. Students of French history will see how the colonial project, the so-called "Civilization Mission," was exported to a far corner of the empire. French Hanoi's history embodies the troubling paradox of France's best traits (the legacy of the Enlightenment and the faith in scientific progress) coexisting with the nation's worst practices (systems of colonial exploitation and racist disdain for the non-white Other).
  • The story is framed within a world historical perspective that takes into account the ways in which cultures and economies have become increasingly intertwined in the modern era. For at least three generations, colonialism tied France and Vietnam together, with each country influencing the other. This story of globalization notes the important role of China as both a lure to the West and the source of a massive global diaspora.
  • Offers a case study in humanity's relationship with the environment that illustrates the ironic and tragic ways in which modernization projects can have unintended consequences.
  • Prompts the reader to think about the process of writing history. How do historians put their stories together? Where do we find our sources? What kind of evidence do we use? What kind of information makes into an archive or a library? What might be silenced and left out of the historical record? Finally, I want you to think about the process of writing history. Ask yourself questions about how historians put their stories together. Where do we find our sources? What kind of evidence do we use? What kind of information makes into an archive or a library? What might be silenced and left out of the historical record? The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt poses these questions to the reader.
  • Includes 49 primary sources, many available in English for the first time, as well as 3 full-color maps.