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9780520379374

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Reviews

"""Shohet’s study responds to a single question: What holds families together despite the strain of a century of turbulent conflict and inequities stemming from liberalizing economic reform? Her chapters answer this question by focusing on three interrelated principles that sustain family connections in the midst of radical change: love, sacrifice, and asymmetrical reciprocity. She examines these concepts in five chapters that reveal, on the one hand, how individual, familial, and national sacrifices are mutually intertwined and can even dovetail. On the other hand, sacrifice for love can also enforce silences and cause conflicts—ideas that Shohet reveals through stunningly intimate portrayals of family relations."" * CHOICE * ""Silence and Sacrifice is a rich and remarkable book. . . . it is a moving and thought-provoking account of human struggles to sustain life together and to live with love."" * Ethnos * ""The book rewards a careful reading with ethnographic insights within and across families. It resists easy and flashy conclusions, but instead invites readers to sit with…ambiguity."" * Journal of Asian Studies * ""Shohet continuously weaves together family interaction and life-history narratives with Vietnam's often conflictive past. Thus, while this is a book about family and language, it also illuminates much larger questions about the social legacy of war, political turbulence, and economic change."" * Linguistic Anthropology * ""Shohet shows us how the extraordinary is lived as ordinary, and how continuity, however precarious, is achieved despite numerous tensions, divisions, and differences."" * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *"

Shohet's study responds to a single question: What holds families together despite the strain of a century of turbulent conflict and inequities stemming from liberalizing economic reform? Her chapters answer this question by focusing on three interrelated principles that sustain family connections in the midst of radical change: love, sacrifice, and asymmetrical reciprocity. She examines these concepts in five chapters that reveal, on the one hand, how individual, familial, and national sacrifices are mutually intertwined and can even dovetail. On the other hand, sacrifice for love can also enforce silences and cause conflicts-ideas that Shohet reveals through stunningly intimate portrayals of family relations. * CHOICE * Silence and Sacrifice is a rich and remarkable book. . . . it is a moving and thought-provoking account of human struggles to sustain life together and to live with love. * Ethnos * The book rewards a careful reading with ethnographic insights within and across families. It resists easy and flashy conclusions, but instead invites readers to sit with...ambiguity. * Journal of Asian Studies * Shohet continuously weaves together family interaction and life-history narratives with Vietnam's often conflictive past. Thus, while this is a book about family and language, it also illuminates much larger questions about the social legacy of war, political turbulence, and economic change. * Linguistic Anthropology * Shohet shows us how the extraordinary is lived as ordinary, and how continuity, however precarious, is achieved despite numerous tensions, divisions, and differences. * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *

Shohet's study responds to a single question: What holds families together despite the strain of a century of turbulent conflict and inequities stemming from liberalizing economic reform? Her chapters answer this question by focusing on three interrelated principles that sustain family connections in the midst of radical change: love, sacrifice, and asymmetrical reciprocity. She examines these concepts in five chapters that reveal, on the one hand, how individual, familial, and national sacrifices are mutually intertwined and can even dovetail. On the other hand, sacrifice for love can also enforce silences and cause conflicts-ideas that Shohet reveals through stunningly intimate portrayals of family relations. * CHOICE *

Author Information

Merav Shohet is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Boston University.

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