In books mentioning the Cao Đài, it is still common to read about their strangeness—thus, Fredrik Logevall, the historian of the Vietnam War, calls the religion “an exotic mixture of spiritualism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Catholicism.”Footnote ¹ Such comments reflect an enduring strain in the history of modern Vietnam of exoticizing what is unknown to Westerners. It has thus been a pleasure to see Vietnamese and other scholars recently articulate substantive approaches to the Cao Đài in non-Vietnamese languages. In the last few years, two innovative books have taken Cao Đài studies in new directions. The first, looking inwards, is Jérémy Jammes's magisterial Les Oracles du Cao Đài: Étude d'un Mouvement Religieux Vietnamien et de Ses Réseaux, which digs deeply, and exhaustively, into the genesis and transformation of Cao Đài in Vietnam, with a particular emphasis on its oracles.Footnote ² The second, looking outwards, is this clearly written, absorbing, and intellectually engaging book by Janet Hoskins, which situates the diasporic development of the Cao Đài in an anthropological and historical context.

Hoskins faced several challenges in writing The Divine Eye and the Diaspora. First, how does one best understand Caodaism, which draws on multiple cultural heritages, both esoteric and exoteric, from inside and outside of Vietnam? Second, how does one write about a new Vietnamese religion, founded in 1926, with multiple branches, that transforms itself again in the diaspora after 1975? After all, as Hoskins states, “the fall of Saigon in 1975 provided a challenge as deep and transformative as the colonial crisis of 1925” (p. 130). The book confronts these tasks in an innovative way. First, it provides the historical background in Vietnam to the rise of the Cao Đài religion before 1975. Second, it pairs leading Cao Đài members in the post-1975 diaspora from different branches with earlier Cao Đài inspirations from Vietnam.

Hoskins argues that the Cao Đài managed to syncretize beliefs from nearby and distant sources into one religious field. She argues that by looking at the principles behind this restructuring, rather than the individual components of belief, we can understand how the Cao Đài became a “religion of decolonization” that “fuses the anticolonial struggle for national sovereignty with the personal struggle for self-perfection” (p. 21). This is an important legacy: Caodaism grew in a period of great political and religious ferment. At the same time, Hoskins often ignores an emphasis on principles by looking at the idiosyncratic journeys of her chosen subjects: her biographical approach allows the reader to understand the contingent choices individual believers often made.

In the paired biographies that make up the heart of the book, we can see different Cao Đài practitioners giving different emphases to the political struggles versus the struggles for self-knowledge. Some of these pairings work better than others. It is no surprise that the second chapter looks at the “Protector of the Dharma” Phạm Công Tắc, the best-known public face and chief medium of the Tây Ninh branch of the Cao Đài until he was expelled into Cambodia at gunpoint by President Ngô Đình Diệm in 1956. Phạm Công Tắc was and is a controversial figure because under him, the Tây Ninh branch of the Cao Đài became militarized (p. 90). I would simply note that this militarization—and in particular, the Cao Đài's tactical alliance with the French against the Việt Minh in the First Indochina War—came in a time of crisis, one whose primary cause was the Việt Minh's attempt to bend all contenders to its will through violence. This same militarization gave rise to the Cao Đài mini-warlord, General Nguyễn Thanh Phương, who forced Phạm Công Tắc into exile. Interestingly, the discussion of Phạm Công Tắc is paired with that of Bùi Đắc Hùm in the diaspora, who has emphasized the “tolerant, inclusive aspects of Caodai doctrine” (p. 95) in an American context.

Hoskins makes another pairing that links individuals associated with Phạm Công Tắc: that of Trần Quang Vinh, long the “right-hand man” of Phạm Công Tắc, and his son Trần Quang Cảnh. Hoskins emphasizes their common shared legacies as “spiritual sons” of Victor Hugo. This is an intriguing choice, and in many ways perfectly justifiable. Perhaps because I am more familiar with Trần Quang Vinh's significant political and military roles, and his involvement in the messy internal military and political intrigues of the Tây Ninh branch during the First Indochina War, I am a bit skeptical of the gravitas of Trẩn Quang Vinh as a religious leader. The same criticism applies to his son, who has focused on the organizational survival of the Cao Đài in America, and on political issues, and has taken controversial stands on relations with the Vietnamese government.

Other chapters look at a range of fascinating figures, such as the secular ex-diplomat Dỗ Vạn Lý turned Cao Đài leader and Lâm Lý Hùng, leader of the Minh Lý Đạo (the “Way of Enlightened Reason”), a “way” that is separate from the Cao Đài, but that has been intertwined with it since the founding of the Cao Đài. Lâm Lý Hùng focuses on esoteric knowledge and raises a key issue in understanding the Cao Đài in the diaspora: how much “innovation” leads to a deeper understanding of the religion, and how much is a problem? As he states, “Innovation simply led to new divisions” (Lâm Lý Hung, cited in Hoskins, p. 180). And Cao Đài in the diaspora are innovating in all sorts of ways, such as in the creation of web presences and virtual communities. Lâm Lý Hùng's solution to division is to plumb deeper into foundational texts. In examining his focus on esoteric knowledge, as opposed to the exoteric and public manifestation of communal faith, Hoskins introduces us to a tension at the heart of Cao Đài practice.

There is much to praise in The Divine Eye and the Diaspora. It addresses foundational issues in the study of religion, diaspora, and decolonization. It links the study of the Cao Đài comparatively to debates over how to study such topics, thus “de-provincializing” the study of Vietnam and the Vietnamese. It is intellectually satisfying: it aptly brings people as theoretically different as Jean Baudrillard, Stuart Hall, Pierre Bourdieu, and Max Weber into a dialogue over a major diasporic religion. At the same time, Hoskins wears her learning lightly. Even when one quibbles with her, this book gives much food for thought, and I recommend it to readers enthusiastically.