Vietnam's Coal Frontier: Mining, Environment, and Empire

by Thuy Linh Nguyen

Overview

In one of the first energy histories of Southeast Asia, Thuy Linh Nguyen explores the environmental, economic and social history of large-scale coal mining in French colonial Vietnam. Focusing on the Quảng Yên coal basin in northern Vietnam, known for its world's largest anthracite coal mines, this deeply researched study demonstrates how mining came to dominate the landscape, restructuring the region's environment and upending local communities. Nguyen pays particular attention to the role of various non-state local actors, often underrepresented in grand narratives of modern Vietnam, including Vietnamese and Chinese migrant mine workers, timber traders, loggers and local ethnic minorities. Breaking away from the metropole-colony paradigm, Nguyen offers a new lens through which to explore the dynamics of colonial rule and the importance of inter-Asian networks, arguing that the colonial energy regime must be understood as a complex, multi-layered interaction between empire, capital, labour, water, sea, land and timber forests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009638012
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2025
Series:	Studies in Environment and History
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Thuy Linh Nguyen is Associate Professor of History at Mount Saint Mary College, New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Pre-Colonial Settings and the Introduction of Large-Scale Coal Mining: 1. Mining patterns and the pacification of the coal frontier; 2. The discovery of the Quảng Yên coal basin; 3. The pioneers; Part II. The Coal Regime during the Boom Years and an Environment at Stake: 4. Liberal mining regime and the coal rush of the 1920s; 5. Coal mining, deforestation and forest management; 6. The Filao trees: from mine timber to coastal defender; 7. Coal, water and the limits of colonial environmentalism; 8. Coal mining and the reworking of the urban landscape; 9. Internal working regime and a mining subculture; Epilogue.