1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910826371103321

Autore

Jennings Eric Thomas

Titolo

Imperial heights : Dalat and the making and undoing of French Indochina / / Eric T. Jennings

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2011

ISBN

0-520-94844-0

1-283-27764-6

9786613277640

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (372 p.)

Collana

From Indochina to Vietnam : revolution and war in a global perspective ; ; 4

Disciplina

959.7/6

Soggetti

HISTORY / General

Đà Lạt (Vietnam) History

Đà Lạt (Vietnam) Colonial influence

France Colonies Asia History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Foreword by the Series Editors -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Escaping Death in the Tropics -- 2. Murder on the Race for Altitude -- 3. Health, Altitude, and Climate -- 4. Early Dalat, 1898-1918 -- 5. Colonial Expectations, Pastimes, Comestibles, Comforts, and Discomforts -- 6. Situating the "Montagnards" -- 7. A Functional City? Architecture, Planning, Zoning, and Their Critics -- 8. The Dalat Palace Hotel -- 9. Vietnamese Dalat -- 10. Some Colonial Categories: Children, European Women, and Métis -- 11. Divine Dalat -- 12. The Maelstrom, 1940-1945 -- 13. Autonomous Province or Federal Capital? -- 14. Dalat at War and Peace, 1946-1975 -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Intended as a reminder of Europe for soldiers and clerks of the empire, the city of Dalat, located in the hills of Southern Vietnam, was built by the French in an alpine locale that reminded them of home. This book uncovers the strange 100-year history of a colonial city that was conceived as a center of power and has now become a kitsch tourist destination famed for its colonial villas, flower beds, pristine lakes, and



pastoral landscapes. Eric T. Jennings finds that from its very beginning, Dalat embodied the paradoxes of colonialism-it was a city of leisure built on the backs of thousands of coolies, a supposed paragon of hygiene that offered only questionable protection from disease, and a new venture into ethnic relations that ultimately backfired. Jennings' fascinating history opens a new window onto virtually all aspects of French Indochina, from architecture and urban planning to violence, labor, métissage, health and medicine, gender and ethic relations, schooling, religion, comportments, anxieties, and more.