Download or read book Fragments of the Present written by Philip Taylor and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores in anthropological terms the cultural identity of the people of the Vietnamese South since the Vietnam War ended. The author describes southern Vietnam's postwar history, the impact of political and economic changes, policies towards music and popular culture, shifts in state ideology, and the contrasting fortunes of urban and rural communities. Philip Taylor spent a considerable time in a Mekong delta village undertaking ethnographic research into rural cultural identity. He describes the villagers' view of history and their sense of present decline, contrasting this with state and urban interpretations of the southern region's "modernity" over the same period.