Phantasmatic Indochina: French Colonial Ideology in Architecture, Film, and Literature (Asia-Pacific)

Rating:
Summary: Great work in post-colonial studies
Review: This book is absolutely brilliant. Of course, anybody can say this without much effort: "Thanks for telling me (that the colonized is exploited and misrepresented) , I know it all along already." But nobody seems to take the time to show how this happened, and in what ways hegemonic power was construed, and what kind of colonial subject was formed. Norindr's vigorous work fills the relatively big void in the post-colonial field: the lack of serious, critical historical scholarship. Too many theories, too little archival work. I recommend Phantasmatic Indochina to anybody interested in Post-colonial studies and Southeast Asian studies. If you love Ann Stoler's Race and the Education of Desire, you'd like to read Phantasmatic Indochina as well.

Rating:
Summary: Great work in post-colonial studies
Review: This book is absolutely brilliant. Of course, anybody can say this without much effort: "Thanks for telling me (that the colonized is exploited and misrepresented) , I know it all along already." But nobody seems to take the time to show how this happened, and in what ways hegemonic power was construed, and what kind of colonial subject was formed. Norindr's vigorous work fills the relatively big void in the post-colonial field: the lack of serious, critical historical scholarship. Too many theories, too little archival work. I recommend Phantasmatic Indochina to anybody interested in Post-colonial studies and Southeast Asian studies. If you love Ann Stoler's Race and the Education of Desire, you'd like to read Phantasmatic Indochina as well.

Rating:
Summary: Not for consumption outside of academia -- if there.
Review: This book is addressed to the phantasmic someone who disagrees with this: colonists exploit the colonized. This book is not for someone looking to better understand the French colonial aesthetic -- who they wanted to be, how they were influenced by their surroundings, and how they reflected this in their art. The author reviews French art relating to Indochina with a monochromatic lens that filters everything out of view exept the evil of colonialism. No insights turn up that are not already possessed by sentient humans.