Monarchical Manipulation in Cambodia: France, Japan, and the Sihanouk Crusade for Independence

One figure especially strides across modern Cambodian history - Norodom Sihanouk. 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. Deeply embedded Khmer cultural conventions, the interplay of charismatic power and patronage, and manipulation of the 1,000-year-old monarchy are central to this book, as is indigenous resistance, Buddhist activism, French cultural creation...