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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lachenal, Guillaume, 1978- author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Theory in forms

Standardized Title:

Médecin qui voulut être roi. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

David, Jean Joseph.

Medicine--Colonies--France--History--20th century.

Medicine.

Medicine--Cameroon--History--20th century.

Medical ethics--Colonies--France--History--20th century.

Medical ethics.

Medical ethics--Cameroon--History--20th century.

Physicians--France--Biography.

Physicians.

Physicians--Cameroon--Biography.

Colonial administrators--France--Biography.

Colonial administrators.

Colonial administrators--Cameroon--Biography.

Cameroon--History--To 1960.

Cameroon.

France--Colonies--Administration--History--20th century.

France.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 298 pages) : maps.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2022.

System Details:

Mode of Access: World Wide Web.

data file

Summary:

"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.

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.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Lachenal, Guillaume, 1978- Médecin qui voulut être roi. English. Doctor who would be king.

ISBN:

9781478022480

1478022485

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.