Michael Vickery

Work on Southeast Asian history



Vickery's research and writings have concentrated on ancient and modern history of Cambodia and Thailand[3] with publications ranging from early history to contextual studies and interpretations of recent and contemporary Cambodia - being one of only a handful scholars, who comprehensively examined regional events during the 1980s.[4]



Vickery essentially contributed to and helped to extend[5] the scholarly debate of the Pre-Angkorian kingdoms,[6] the classic age and the dark ages of Cambodia, introducing and integrating the works of the Cambodian scholars Khin Sok and Mak Phoen by utilizing their alternative view-points.[7] On the basis of volumes of previously non-deciphered epigraphic inscriptions, Vickery elaborated on the fact, that many works of earlier scholars, "...written 20 years ago may be simply refuted by the discovery or the deciphering of a [new] inscription". and further: "To study nowadays Cambodian history with [Georges] Coédès would amount to do geography with Ptolemy".[8]



1984 he published his "carefully researched"[9] book "Cambodia 1975–1982" that covers the years of the Pol Pot era and its immediate aftermath. The work has since become a standard reference text on the Khmer Rouge Canon and Cambodia's Civil War decades before and after.[10]



Although Vickery, as a member of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars is often labelled a "Marxist" historian[11][12] by some scholars, he is considered to be and regularly cited as a "Cambodia expert"[13] and one of the "leading historians"[14] on Cambodian history.[15]



Vickery in the Bulletin Of Concerned Asian Scholars, Volume 21, 1989:



"My first contribution (1982) to BCAS [Bulletin Of Concerned Asian Scholars] was on CIA falsification of Cambodian statistics. I believe the task of BCAS should be to counter U.S. regime misinformation and mainstream self-censorship, and provide well-researched progressive information on Asia and the Pacific...[sic]"[16]



Vickery contributed a number of columns for the Phnom Penh Post from 1992 to 2007[17] during which time he engaged in political debate.[18] In 2008 it was announced, that he had been working with former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary’s defense team at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, serving as an analyst and historical expert.