The two books - "The Renaissance of Dai Viet in the 10th-14th centuries" and "Law and Vietnamese society in the 17th-18th centuries" - are a continuation of the research on the history of the nation through the dynasties with their characteristics, the wars of Dai Viet at that time and above all, the process of forming the feudal state.
The author Aleksey Borizovich Polyakov is a Russian historian and diplomat. He was once the Cultural Attache of the Soviet Embassy in Vietnam, specializing in researching Vietnamese history, especially the Ly - Tran period. With many famous previous studies, he continued to write the book "The Renaissance of Dai Viet in the 10th - 14th centuries".
This is a valuable historical work, starting with the presentation of the historical context, describing the decline of the Tang Dynasty and the uprisings of local leaders, especially Ngo Quyen with the Bach Dang victory in 938, opening the period of independence and autonomy of Dai Viet after nearly 1,000 years of Chinese domination.
With his intellectual vision, author Aleksey Polyakov has thoroughly analyzed the process of building an autonomous state in terms of politics, economy and culture of the dynasties: Ngo, Dinh, Tien Le, especially the prosperous period of Ly and Tran dynasties.
With a clear, engaging, easy-to-understand language style, combined with rich sources of documents, this is not only an academic document but also a fascinating story about resilience, creativity and national pride, reminding us of traditional cultural values that need to be preserved and promoted.
The book “Law and Vietnamese Society in the 16th-18th Centuries” is a valuable scientific research work on law, history and society. This work was written by Professor Insun Yu - an international scholar with nearly 50 years of in-depth research on Vietnam, first published in Korea in 1990.
The book contains scientific bases for the National Dynasty Penal Code, namely the Hong Duc Code - a complete code that has been preserved intact to this day. The code was established during the early Le Dynasty (during the reign of King Le Thai To to the reign of King Le Thanh Tong).
Exploiting the law, the author clarifies the nature of traditional Vietnamese society in this period through two main contents: Research on family structure; the complex relationship between family - village - State; emphasizing the difference between Confucian principles promoted by the Le dynasty to a dominant position and long-standing customs and practices of Vietnam, typically the provisions of law to promote the position of women.
This is also the author's passion for developing his doctoral thesis defended at the University of Michigan in 1978, combining comparisons with Han-Nom sources and studies on Vietnam by many other international scholars.
Therefore, although Professor Insun Yu had never been to Vietnam when the book was first published, the book is still a reputable source of information serving the research process of Vietnam studies to achieve correct understanding of the nature of society.
