Early Nineteenth-Century Vietnamese Catholics and Others in the Pages of the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi

Cooke, Nola J2015-12-130022-4634http://hdl.handle.net/1885/78151Western secular historiography has conventionally viewed the history of Catholicism in Vietnam through a political optic, a perspective which has distorted the early nineteenth-century religious situation in both Vietnam and France. This article discusses how Vietnamese understood Catholicism at the popular level and what attracted people to the religion, as well as introducing an important European Catholic fund-raising society whose interventions into Vietnam long predated any serious French political designs on the country.Keywords: Catholicism; historical perspective; nineteenth century; perception; political conflict; Asia; Eurasia; Europe; France; Southeast Asia; Viet Nam; Western EuropeEarly Nineteenth-Century Vietnamese Catholics and Others in the Pages of the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi200410.1017/S00224634040001412015-12-11