The New Way

"In her fine-grained analysis of local realities and the globalization of religion, Tâm Ngô has delivered an important contribution to Hmong and Vietnamese studies, the study of religion, Southeast Asian ethnography, and globalized evangelical Protestantism."

"Not only is the book remarkable for its collection and use of hard-to-get data from a wide array of sources in Vietnam and abroad, including extended periods of fieldwork in a Hmong village, but also for the story it recounts of conversion not by mission on the ground but via broadcast from the air."

"This book on the conversion of the Vietnamese Hmong is important because, to an extent, the history of modern Vietnam is a history of contending with Christianity. . . . Ngô argues that beginning in the 1980s the Vietnamese Hmong, disillusioned by broken promises and oppressive developmental policies, have seized Protestantism as a route to empowerment and modernity."

"Represents a great achievement as the summation of extensive independent fieldwork on a topic that is essentially the convergence of three 'politically sensitive' topics in Vietnam: religious change, ethnic politics, and transnational groups. Ngô has become the first academic to publish English-language research about this topic based on ethnographic methods, which is no mean feat given the government restrictions placed on academic research in upland Vietnam."

"A must-read for anyone interested in Christianity in developing countries, religion in Asia, and studies of Southeast Asia and Vietnam."

"Contributes to the study of religion—not just Protestantism—and ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia. Will be of interest to scholars who want to pursue ongoing studies of Hmong practices and their transformation in the future."

"Conversion to evangelical Protestantism by members of the Hmong community in Vietnam raises a host of questions: the impact of conversion on individual converts and non-converts; the relationship between Protestant eschatology and Hmong millenarianism; relations between the Hmong and the state; the transformation of this marginal community into the center of the Hmong diasporic imagination through radio broadcasts and US-based missionaries. This ethnographically rich and theoretically sophisticated study is a major contribution to a wide range of disciplines."