ABSTRACT
Religion was of fundamental importance to the Vietnamese peasant. Their religion was an eclectic amalgam of beliefs, drawing heavily on the Buddhist-Taoist-Confucian heritage from China. Confucian dogma refused women the right to an education, to a role in politics and the right to make decisions about crucial aspects of her life. The promotion of women into positions of authority, both in the North and South, was a radically new social phenomenon and it did encounter resistance within the conservative culture of traditional Vietnamese society as a whole, and not just amongst men. The question of land and land reform is central to an understanding of war and revolution in twentieth-century Vietnam. It is impossible to understand the dynamics of the wars in Vietnam and to appreciate why the North Vietnamese fought so hard and for so long against almost immeasurable odds, without some background information on life, politics and the economics of traditional and modern Vietnam.
