Hmong: History of a People
| Author | H. Keith Quincy |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Hmong people |
| Media type |
Hmong: History of a People is a book by H. Keith Quincy, PhD, published by the Eastern Washington University Press. It was initially published in 1988 with a revised edition published in 1995.
It chronicles the history of the Hmong people in China; it also documents the modern Hmong with main focus on Hmong in Laos and also some focus on Hmong in Vietnam. In 2005 Robert Entenmann, Ph.D. of St. Olaf College wrote that the book was "the only easily available English-language study of Hmong history." The sources used in the work include historical events and eyewitness interviews. The author, who was an Eastern Washington University (EWU) professor in the Department of Government, received his doctoral degree from Claremont Colleges and specialized in American politics, political theory, and Vietnam. Quincy described himself as a "political philosopher".
There are eleven chapters in the book. The history of the Hmong people is discussed in Chapters 1 through 3. The traditional culture of the Hmong, the 19th Century migration of Hmong into Southeast Asia, and the opium-producing role of the Hmong and that effect on global politics and international trade are all chronicled in Chapters 4 through 6. Chapters 7 through 10 discuss the involvement of Hmong in Laos with the French colonial governments, the Laotian government, and the U.S. military.; this included intra-Hmong feuds. Chapter 11 discusses the Communist victory in Laos in 1975.
There are not very many direct attributions to material, and the book does not have footnotes, nor does it have any other formal references to sources. Entenmann stated that the absence of footnotes was "a remarkable omission for a monograph published by a university press". Bruce Downing, who wrote a review for the Journal of Refugee Studies, stated "This is not a highly scholarly work".
This book cites François Marie Savina's Histoire des Miao, and The History of the Hmong (Meo) by Jean Mottin in its bibliography.
Entenmann states that even though the book identifies Sonom as a Hmong king, Sonom in fact was not Hmong. Entenmann argued that the use of the word "" was imprecise during the time when Jean Joseph Marie Amiot wrote an account of the Jinchuan Wars, since the Qing government under the Qianlong Emperor referred to all ethnic minorities as "Miao people" (Chinese: 苗民; pinyin: Miáomín; Wade–Giles: Miao-min). Amiot uses "Miao-tsée" (苗子; Miáozi; Miao-tzu) to refer to the Gyalrong people, of which Sonom was a part. This is distinct from the word "Miaozu" (苗族; Miáozú; Miao-tsu).
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