Imperial Heights

The French built the city of Dalat in the alpine hills of southern Vietnam as a reminder of home. This book uncovers the strange 100-year history of a colonial city that was conceived as a center of power and has now become a kitsch tourist destination. Eric T. Jennings finds that from its very beginning, Dalat embodied the paradoxes of colonialism. It was a city of leisure built on the backs of thousands of laborers, a supposed paragon of hygiene that offered only questionable protection from disease, and a new venture into ethnic relations that ultimately backfired. Jennings' fascinating history opens a new window onto virtually all aspects of French Indochina, from architecture to violence, labor, metissage, health and medicine, gender and ethnic relations, and more.