author
Henry Baudesson
A French army captain and travel writer, he is best known for vivid accounts of Indochina drawn from years spent on colonial assignments in the region. His work blends observation, adventure, and the period’s ethnographic curiosity.
1 Audiobook
Indo-China and its primitive people
by Henry Baudesson
About the author
Born in 1867, Henri Baudesson was a French military officer whose full given names were Marie Joseph Auguste Henri. Records from the Bibliothèque nationale de France identify him as a captain who served with the 2nd Cuirassiers and took part in a study mission for the Trans-Indochinese Railway in 1911.
Baudesson is remembered chiefly for writing about Indochina from firsthand experience. Editions and library records for Indo-China and Its Primitive People describe it as a lively account based on years he spent in the interior of Vietnam while working on French colonial public works, including time among highland communities and the Cham.
He died in 1932. Today his writing is mainly of interest as a historical window into French colonial travel literature and the ways Europeans of his era described the peoples and cultures they encountered.