Colonial Cambodia's 'Bad Frenchmen': The rise of French rule and the life of Thomas Caraman, 1840-87

Colonial Cambodia's "Bad Frenchmen" provides a captivating analysis of the gradual establishment of French colonialism in the late nineteenth century. Drawing on new materials from French, Vietnamese and Cambodian archives, it reconstructs a time during which France struggled to give meaning and substance to its Protectorate over Cambodia.

It traces the lives of failed colonists – most notably Thomas Caramen, who all constituted a challenge to the colonial enterprise by muddling its social,...