Ben F. Kiernan

This project involves writing a long-range environmental history of Cambodia, the first comprehensive study of the interactions between the Khmer people, their land, and their neighbors, including ethnic minority groups. It examines the evidence from prehistoric times to the present of the links between Cambodia’s inhabitants and the ecological landscape of the Mekong and Tonle Sap River basins and surrounding uplands. It also assesses their place in Southeast Asian and global transformations, using new approaches from environmental, comparative and world history to illuminate Cambodia’s cultural, economic and political life.