David Biggs

Biography

David received a BA with honors in American history from the University of North Carolina in 1992, where he helped develop a student environmental action coalition and worked in rural development. He left his homeland (quê hÆ°Æ¡ng) to become a volunteer English teacher in Vietnam and explore the other side of the world. David returned to the United States to pursue a PhD in environmental and Southeast Asian history at the University of Washington in Seattle (1996 to 2004). His dissertation examined social and historical dimensions of water politics in the delta through periods of imperial, colonial, and wartime government. Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta (University of Washington, 2011) received the George Perkins Marsh Award in 2012 and led him to new collaborations with social scientists and policymakers as well as historians. Since 2012, he has shifted his focus to the war-torn landscapes of central Vietnam near the former imperial capital, Hue. He is nearing completion of a manuscript titled Footprints: History and the Militarized Landscape in Central Vietnam, which draws on historical geographic information systems (hGIS), extensive research in aerial photography and map collections, and years of site visits to villages and former military sites.

Research Interest

In the Footprints of War: Environmental History, Militarization, and Landscape in Central Vietnam