I recently discovered that the French Archives nationales de outré-mer has digitized a treasure trove of historical photographs from France’s former colonial possessions and has made those images available online…
Recently I’ve been reading and listening to a new book with accompanying CDs called Longing for the Past: The 78 rpm Era in Southeast Asia. In the early 20th century,…
A kind reader has encouraged me to look at an old Vietnamese map of the Mekong region known as the Đại Man quốc đồ 大蠻國圖 (Map of the Great Savage…
In 1966 John Denver wrote the song “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” When I was growing up, I didn't like that song. The version I heard the most when I…
Following on the post below, here is an attempt at making a map of military posts in French Indochina in World War II. On the map page you can switch…
I pointed out in the post below on “The Other Voices in ‘Vietnamese’ History” that in a place like the Nguyễn Dynasty empire the Việt were not the only people…
Ever wonder what people in Laos were smoking in the 1960s as they cruised around in their new Mazdas? Well here is the answer. Consulate cigarettes, for one, a brand…
In the late 1940s and early 1950s two of the most important events in the twentieth century took place on the Asian mainland. In 1949 there was a revolution in…