The historiography of women in Vietnamese history has long been complicated by cultural and political agendas, as well as problematic and at times limited sources. This state of the field essay surveys the historiographical landscape to highlight existing representations of women’s roles in Vietnamese history, and assesses the benefits and limitations of these depictions. I show that approaches to the study of women that consider them through the lenses of politics, law, and literature each show promise, but also obscure important dimensions of the larger story. I conclude by suggesting strategies for new approaches and interpretive frameworks for future research.

The emergence of popular journalism in 1930s Vietnam allowed for new forms of commentary on a transformed urban life, among them caricatures featuring LB Toéét, a villager bewildered by his encounters with the modern city. This article uses the LB To�t cartoons that appeared in the weekly journal Phong Hóóa [Mores] as a window on urban attitudes toward the modern. It suggests that the illustrations reveal a considerable ambivalence toward modernity on the part of Phong Hóóa's editors, despite their rhetorical commitment to the new and the modern.