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Reviewer needed: ‘Southern Medicine for Southern People’ (Monnais, Thompson and Wahlberg 2012)

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By CentreForMedicalHumanities.org Research Team | Last verified: September 2026

Research Summary: Southern Medicine for Southern People

Category: Academic Book Review Solicitation — Medical Humanities
Subject Focus: Vietnamese medicine's historical development, cultural identity formation, and modernization from 14th century to present
Key Scholarly Themes: Post-colonial national identity, medical pluralism, globalization, North-South and West-East medical encounters
Author Team: Laurence Monnais, C. Michelle Thompson, and Ayo Wahlberg (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012)
Disciplinary Scope: History, sociology, anthropology, and medicine with particular relevance to East Asian Studies
Evidence Grade: Empirically-rich interdisciplinary scholarship examining Vietnamese medicine's socio-historical trajectories and contemporary practice
Primary Focus: Examines how Vietnamese medicine emerged from Chinese medical traditions while establishing distinct national medical identity amid colonial and post-colonial contexts
Geographic Reach: Vietnam and Vietnamese diaspora communities worldwide; contextualizes health and medicine within medical pluralism
Review Requirements: Approximately 1,000-1,500 words; contact reviews editor with explanation of qualifications

We are pleased to offer ‘Southern Medicine for Southern People: Vietnamese Medicine in the Making’ by Laurence Monnais, C. Michelle Thompson, and Ayo Wahlberg (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012). Expressions of interest from all angles of the medical humanities are welcome, particularly those with an interest in East Asian Studies.

‘What is a national medicine? What does it mean for a medicine to be traditional and scientific at the same time? How could a specifically Vietnamese medicine emerge out of the medical practices and treatments that have flourished and waned during key socio-cultural encounters in Vietnam?

This book answers these questions by examining the making of Vietnamese medicine from a historical and contemporary perspective. Ever since its 14th century emergence out of the traditions and practices of the much more globally celebrated Chinese medicine, Vietnamese medicine has been engaged in a constant effort to define, guard and more recently, revive itself. In this collection of empirically-rich chapters, international scholars specialising in history, sociology, anthropology and medicine show how this process has played out through very much ongoing North-South and West-East encounters.

Vietnamese medicine is practiced, produced and consumed in contexts of medical pluralism and globalisation, not only within Vietnam, but increasingly also among Vietnamese diaspora around the world. Its development and modernisation cannot be detached from Vietnam’s tumultuous and tragic quest for independence. The compass points that saturate every chapter in this volume suggest that the making of Vietnamese medicine has been as much related to post-colonial national identity formation as it has to national efforts to address the health problems of the Vietnamese people’.

If you would like to write a review on ‘Southern Medicine for Southern People’ (approximately 1,000-1,500 words in length), then please email our reviews editor with a short explanation of why you are well placed to review the book.

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