Vietnam. Imperial heights: Dalat and the making and undoing of French Indochina. By Eric Jennings. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Maps, Illustrations, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Abstract

Vietnam Imperial heights: Dalat and the making and undoing of French Indochina By ERIC JENNINGS Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Maps, Illustrations, Notes, Bibliography, Index. As with his earlier work on the history of the French empire, Eric Jennings' recently published history of Da Lat will likely prove to be an inspiration to historians interested in reconsidering European imperialism by delving deeply into the local social and cultural history of the colonial encounter. His previous studies on colonial life under Vichy and on the colonial experience of hydrotherapy did not pioneer historical enquiry into these topics. These studies did, however, spur on scholars of empire in taking them seriously, both in the history of France and of its empire. Very much a part of the so-called 'new imperial history', his examination of Da Lat's history from its colonial genesis to its postcolonial growth tells a story of the contingencies that hampered the best-laid imperial plans for creating an oasis in the central highlands of Vietnam. Based largely on colonial archival sources, Jennings argues that the realities of the colonial political economy deeply affected repeated attempts to realise imperial visions of an ideal Da Lat and, thus of an ideal Indochina. Even before French rule was secure, the military and, later, civilian administrators of Indochina had resolved to equip the colony with centres of convalescence that approximated a temperate European climate. Governor-General Paul Doumer seconded personnel to scout for a location at an altitude that matched the science of contemporary notions of the most beneficial spot for a hill station. Alexandre Yersin stumbled upon the plateau that was to support Da Lat and thus began the erratic rise of the city in the hills. For every fervent supporter of the hill station in the colonial administration there was another who more soberly assessed the scientific efficacy, the profligacy or the political imprudence of the Da Lat cause. Despite being captive to the caprices of colonial politics and society, the hill station nonetheless grew. Promoters continued to champion visions of Da Lat as the apotheosis of the colonial racial and social order, while it slowly grew as more and more came to the hill station, despite its critics and despite its seeming inability to live up to expectations. People came for work and for holidays, temporarily and permanently, until Dat Lat finally achieved its colonial zenith during the early 1940s. In telling the story of the vicissitudes and tribulations of the city, its promoters and detractors as well as its inhabitants, Jennings' history of colonial Da Lat exemplifies the new imperial history both in its achievements and its shortcomings. It provides a sustained examination of the contradictions inherent in the imperial discourses of race and tropicality that lay at its origin and shaped its haphazard development. He importantly stresses the 'brutal methods' of forced labour, compelled migration and racial segregation that formed the basis for this colonial 'utopia' (p. 59). By telling Da Lat's story across that suppositious divide separating colonial from postcolonial, Jennings' study also points to the lingering vestiges of imperial visions in contemporary Da Lat. While he asserts that 'the effects on Indochinese cultures remain to be seen' (p. 93), Imperial heights will provide fodder for those seeking to understand how the colonial order has enduringly affected the societies of the colonised. Breaking with his own earlier work and with the standard fare of imperial history, Jennings also makes more use of Vietnamese sources in attempting to account more fully for the place of Indochinese in their own histories. …