Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors

A richly researched and exciting translation of perhaps the oldest text written in qu?c ng? on Tonkinese (northern Vietnam) religious practices ... This is a recommended reading for specialists of missionary and translation studies. * Jeremy Jammes, Religious Studies Review *
Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors offers, especially in its first part, a concise yet comprehensive survey of the socioreligious landscape of Vietnam at the time. * Eugenio Menegon, Journal of Vietnamese Studies *
Tran...provides a richly researched and exciting translation ...This is a recommended reading for specialists of missionary and translation studies. * Jeremy Jammes, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Religious Studies Review *
This work is a major contribution to the religious history of premodern Vietnam and to the study of relations between Christianity and traditional religions. * Pascal Bourdeaux, Moussons *
An Tran has written a valuable book which gives us insight into the religious beliefs and practices in eighteenth-century Vietnam, and of Christian missionary responses to and understandings of those beliefs and practices...His book provides one of the fullest accounts of Vietnamese religions available in English, which is a boon for the religious studies scholar. * Judith A. Berling, Asian American Theological Forum *
Studies on the encounter between Christianity and Asian traditions from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century have been a well-trodden path for scholars of religion. Nevertheless, scant attention has been paid to the Vietnamese context compared with that of China, Japan, and India. Anh Tran's Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors: An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam, tries to fill the vacuum by interpreting and translating a newly-discovered eighteenth century manuscript entitled Tam Giao Chu Vong (Errors of the Three Religions; hereafter referred to as Errors)...[T]he translation of Errors provides a unique lens to see both the Vietnamese and Chinese religious landscapes of the eighteenth century. * Amy Yu Fu, Reading Religion *
Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors establishes Anh Tran as one of the foremost authorities on eighteenth-century Vietnamese Catholicism. Focusing on a recently discovered manuscript, Tran offers a meticulously researched introduction to how a scholar-missionary views the tam giáo [three religions] in relation to Christianity. Thanks to Tran's linguistically sophisticated translation of this apologetical work, readers will be able to gain a deep understanding of Vietnamese Christianity in its historical context. * Peter C. Phan, Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Georgetown University *
Anh Q. Tran's Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors is a significant contribution to the study of religion in early modern Vietnam. His translation and analysis of the Tam Giáo Ch(u V.ong offers an invaluable perspective on the dynamic between Catholicism and the religions it encountered in the Vietnamese realm. Tran's book, with its detailed historical contextualization, will become indispensable for understanding both Catholicism and Vietnam's rich existing religious landscape. * George Dutton, author of A Vietnamese Moses: Philiphê Binh and the Geographies of Early Modern Catholicism *