The doctor who would be king / Guillaume Lachenal ; translated by Cheryl Smeall.

  • Lachenal, Guillaume, 1978-
Date:
2022
  • Books

About this work

Also known as

Médecin qui voulut être roi. English

Description

"The Doctor Who Would Be King, the English-language translation of Guillaume Lachenal's Le Médecin qui voulut être roi, tells the story of Dr. Jean Joseph David, known as "King David" or the "Emperor of Haut-Nyong," and the experiment in colonial governance he led. From 1939-1944, the Haut-Nyong area of French Cameroon was placed under the authority of David and five other French doctors. Expanding efforts to rein in epidemics that had depopulated the region, David was given authority to refashion the Medical Region as a laboratory for a utopian dream at the heart of European colonialism: the fantasy that colonial powers would emancipate their colonies from misery, ignorance, and sickness. David was thus freed from political and military influence to reform government, law, and economy according to his vision of rational public health policy-and he used this mandate to build hospitals, introduce new crops, and implement totalitarian control and violence. Drawing on African and Pacific histories, environmental humanities, and critical global health, Lachenal situates Dr. David's experiment in the context of French imperialism, examining its precedents and afterlives from the Polynesian islands to post-war Africa. He traces the destiny of a failed utopia, interweaving David's biography with a captivating account of his fieldwork to unearth the traces it left in contemporary places, objects, songs, memories, and ruins"-- Provided by publisher.

Publication/Creation

Durham : Duke University Press, 2022.

Physical description

x, 298 pages : maps ; 24 cm.

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

A showcase for colonial humanism -- An archipelago of camps -- Madame Ateba -- Advocating for a regime of exception -- A French dream -- Haut-Nyong must be saved -- Lessons in medical administration -- Paradise : a guided tour (December 2013) -- A real-life experiment -- The invisible men -- Social medicine, French-style -- Life has returned -- Colonel David will become a general -- The missionaries' nightmare -- The dark waters of the Haut-Nyong -- Rubber for the emperor -- "Here we are the masters" -- Koch! Koch! -- King David -- Uvea, desert island -- Chronicles of the Golden Age -- I te temi o Tavite (In the Time of David) -- Doctor Machete -- Becoming king, part I: Coup d'état at the dispensary -- Becoming king, part II: The Wallisian art of governing -- Becoming king, part III: Kicking custom to the curb -- Te Hau Tavite -- Tavite Lea Tahi (David-Only-Speaks-Once) -- Doctor Disaster -- Afelika (Africa) -- Dachau, Indochina -- The light riots.

Language note

Text in English, translated from French.

Type/Technique

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    BZP (David)
    Open shelves

Permanent link

Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9781478015246
  • 1478015241