13 Facts About Michael Vickery

Michael Theodore Vickery was an American historian, lecturer, and author known for his works about the history of Southeast Asia.

Michael Vickery then taught English in Istanbul, Turkey, from 1958 to 1960, in Cambodia from 1960 to 1964, and in Laos from 1964 to 1967.

Michael Vickery carried out a thesis research in Cambodia and Thailand from 1970 to 1972 and halted it in 1973 when he became a lecturer in Southeast Asian history at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia, where he worked until 1979.

Michael Vickery resumed and completed the research in 1977, naming it Cambodia After Angkor: The Chronicular Evidence for the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries.

Michael Vickery then taught Cambodian history at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 1998 to 2002.

Michael Vickery worked as an independent scholar based in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand, from 2002 to 2008.

On June 29,2017, Michael Vickery died of a heart attack at the age of 86 in Battambang Province, Cambodia, where his funeral was held for five days.

Michael Vickery was survived by his Khmer-American wife, Angina Vickery, and his two daughters, Angelina and Mimi.

Michael Vickery essentially contributed to and helped to extend the scholarly debate of the Pre-Angkorian kingdoms, the classic age and the Post-Angkor Period, introducing and integrating the works of the Cambodian scholars Khin Sok and Mak Phoen by utilizing their alternative view-points.

Michael Vickery's work has been described as falling into "Marxist schools of thought" by some scholars although he wasn't a communist.

Michael Vickery is considered to be, and regularly cited as, a "Cambodia expert", one of the leading historians on Cambodian history and as a "giant of Southeast Asian scholarship".

Michael Vickery was a member of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars.

Michael Vickery contributed a number of columns for the Phnom Penh Post from 1992 to 2007 during which time he engaged in political debate.