colonialism

This volume brings together an interdisciplinary team of established and emerging scholars from the disciplines of history, political science and communication studies, to provide a historical reappraisal of Cambodia’s relationships with the West. Contributors to the volume examine moments of historical import in Cambodia's history, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century.

One figure strides across modern Cambodian history―Norodom Sihanouk. From his accession to the throne of Cambodia in 1941 until his extravagant funeral ceremony in 2013, the prince turned ‘king father’ in later life never dodged controversy. But this is not a biography of Sihanouk; the focus is upon the final decades of the French protectorate, the rise of a counter-elite and winning of Cambodia’s independence.

For over a century French officials in Indochina systematically uprooted metis children-those born of Southeast Asian mothers and white, African, or Indian fathers-from their homes. In many cases, and for a wide range of reasons-death, divorce, the end of a romance, a return to France, or because the birth was the result of rape-the father had left the child in the mother's care.