"This book gives an account of the interdisciplinary research on bamboo in Vietnam at the confluence in anthropology of gesture, ethnobotany, and the history of technology. The authors have adopted a technological approach which reviews how the terminology of different parts of the bamboo plant in the dictionaries in Romanised Vietnamese or in demotic (Nôm) has enabled not only the identification of the plant, but also each technical gesture for the appropriation of bamboo by the artisan. Lithographic, literary, and annalistic sources have been mobilized to illustrate the many uses of this versatile plant. Richly illustrated throughout, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Vietnam, anthropology, the history of science and technology, environmental history and architecture. It will also be of great value to those interested in the applications of bamboo in the contemporary world"--