French Geography

This book investigates the classical French School of Geography, le Thanh Ho: tude gographique d' une province annamite, by Charles Robequain and Les Paysans du Delta Tonkinois: tude de gographie humaine, by Pierre Gourou. They were composed between World Wars I and II, at the pinnacle of the French Empire. They were the first substantial geographical French works pertaining to an Asian and colonial environment. The geographical discourses of Charles Robequain and Pierre Gourou are analyzed through a contextual approach related to three major conditions: the context of the French school of geography, the colonial context and the Far Eastern context. The general aim is to examine the way in which these different contexts contribute to the production of the geographical discourses of Charles Robequain and Pierre Gourou. More specific questions related to the way the two geographers constructed their Indochinese regions, the kind of portrait they painted of Far Eastern colonized regions and the relevance of their work are also taken into account.