2021/10/02 by Stéphanie Benzaquen-Gautier · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Cambodian History and Society #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies #Spanish Civil War #History #Ancient history #Geography #Political science #Genealogy #Archaeology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/0967828x.2021.1989987
published in South East Asia Research 29(4), 450-468 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2021/10/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
If there is a period in Cambodia’s history that has been overlooked and disparaged, it is certainly the republican one (1970–1975). The Khmer Republic is often viewed as a corrupt, incompetent regime – an interregnum doomed to failure. This article revisits this narrative through currently available written sources. It argues that a cultural approach to the existing records helps us understand how such a negative view, still prevailing today, was discursively constructed. The analysis of the interpretations of a range of protagonists, observers and academics contributes to a critical historiography that might challenge assumptions and clichés about the Republic. This implies a re-working of the ‘republican archive’, a multiform and scattered body that presents a structural imbalance due to the discrepancy between the limited sources coming from the Republic itself and the significant amount of US records. The article reassembles these archival materials. It proposes a different reading of these documents in terms of discipline. It suggests that this might be the first step towards reassessing the Republic and the two dominant themes of that period: the overthrow of head of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, in 1970 (which marked the end of the monarchy) and the civil war.