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E-book
Author Davis, Bradley Camp, author

Title Imperial bandits : outlaws and rebels in the China-Vietnam borderlands / Bradley Camp Davis
Published Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2017]

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 267 pages)
Series Critical dialogues in Southeast Asian studies
Critical dialogues in Southeast Asian studies.
Contents Introduction : imperial bandits, cultures of violence, and oral traditions -- Opium and rebellion at high altitudes -- Commerce, rebellion, and consular optics -- Imperial bandits and the Sino-French War -- Borderline, resistance, and technology -- Conclusion : flags in the dust
Summary "Tells the story of migrants and communities in the Southeast Asian borderlands. The Black Flags raided their way from southern China into northern Vietnam, competing in the second half of the nineteenth century against other armed migrants and uplands communities for control of commerce (e.g., opium) and natural resources (e.g., copper for making coins). At the edges of empires--the Qing empire in China, the Vietnamese empire governed by the Nguyen dynasty, and, eventually, French colonial Vietnam--the Black Flags and their rivals sustained networks of power and dominance through the framework of political regimes. The history of these imperial bandits and the communities that resisted them demonstrates the plasticity of borderlines, the limits of imposed boundaries, and the flexible division between apolitical banditry and political rebellion in the borderlands of China and Vietnam. Historical studies of these areas tend to examine events only from the perspective of local communities or from the anxious view of imperial officials. By focusing on the Black Flags, upland communities, and their relationships to various empires, this study illustrates borderland processes at the violent edges of empire. It contributes to the ongoing reassessment of borderland areas as frontiers for state expansion, arguing that projects of empire often were instruments of power for armed migrants and their allies, and that, as a setting for forms of human activity that defy tight boundaries, borderlands continued to exist well after the establishment of formal boundaries"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-245) and index
Notes Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Brigands and robbers -- China -- History -- 19th century
Brigands and robbers -- Vietnam -- History -- 19th century
Borderlands -- China -- History -- 19th century
Borderlands -- Vietnam -- History -- 19th century
Violence -- Social aspects -- China -- History -- 19th century
Violence -- Social aspects -- Vietnam -- History -- 19th century
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Criminology.
HISTORY -- Asia -- Southeast Asia.
Borderlands
Brigands and robbers
Violence -- Social aspects
China
Vietnam
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2021692783
ISBN 9780295999692
0295999691