This talk by John Burgess, author of A Woman of Angkor, discusses Angkor. As the capital of the Khmer Empire for close to six centuries, it has had a rich and varied history since the French reintroduced it to the outside world in the 1860s. Amateur archaeology, steamboat tourism, the temples’ emergence as a symbol of the Cambodian nation, and repeated military struggles for control of the site have shaped its past century and a half. Angkor’s ability to draw people from beyond Cambodia’s borders has resulted in conservation and economic gain but also in conflicts, both among the foreigners and with Cambodians for whom Angkor was and is home.
