Noted historian and Southeast Asia researcher Michael Vickery died on Thursday in Battambang province of a heart attack, according to local police.
He was 86 years old.
The scholar had worked in Cambodia and around the region since the 1960s, publishing dozens of works on topics ranging from the pre-Angkorian period to modern Cambodian politics, as well as occasionally writing opinion pieces in local English-language newspapers.
He earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1977 for his work “Cambodia After Angkor: The Chronicular Evidence for the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries.”
According to Battambang City police chief Pang Heang, Michael Vickery had most recently come to Cambodia to visit his sister-in-law, and had been here for about two months before his death.
“He also went to Thailand and a few days after he came back, he became sick,” Mr. Heang said.
He passed away at 11 a.m., according to a statement posted on the late historian’s website.
A five-day funeral, which started on Friday, will continue through today in the city’s Kdol Dounteav commune, the statement said.
