When we think about the way that Southeast Asian rulers governed their kingdoms, we usually think of the relationship between the rulers and the people. But as Katheryn Dyt shows in her new book, The Nature of Kingship: The Weather-World in Nineteenth-Century Vietnam (University of Hawaii Press, 2025), royal governance in the Kingdom of Vietnam depended on a highly detailed knowledge of the weather and the natural environment. Kings took a deep, personal interest in the weather, even writing poetry in an attempt to influence it. The Vietnamese royal bureaucracy had a ‘Bureau for the Observation of the Sky’ to advise the king on portentous signs and omens which might help him interpret the will of Heaven. This premodern understanding of the natural world was influenced both by classical Chinese learning, as well as by an empirical understanding of Vietnam’s distinct climate and landscape. This highly original book connects Vietnam’s precolonial political history with an understanding of the natural environment seen through the eyes of Vietnamese kings and royal officials.
Kathryn Dyt is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the History department at SOAS, University of London.

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