Ep 42: The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt

Dave and Matt sit down with Michael Vann to talk about his new graphic history, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam. Your hosts discuss the joy of finding unexpected things in the archive, the necessity of writing a colonial urban history as a world history, the importance of cultural history and thick description, and the opportunities that graphic histories give teachers in the classroom.  Also, check out Mike's excellently-titled article in the Journal of World History: Sex and the Colonial City: Mapping Masculinity, Whiteness, and Desire in French Occupied Hanoi   Recommendations: All - The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam by Michael G. Vann and Liz Clarke Micheal - Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders by Adam M. McKeown Dave - Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi by Kenda Mutongi Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation by Jennifer Anne Hart Matt - Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott   Music: Angkor by Eric Jones Le Festin by Camille from the Ratatouille soundtrack  Bullet with Butterfly Wings by the Smashing Pumpkins Godzilla by Blue Öyster Cult