About this episode

Matthew Campbell discusses the life of Douglas Latchford, a notorious antiquities dealer involved in the looting of Khmer artifacts.

“Objects in museums have to come from somewhere. The stories of how they came to be in those collections often involve laws being broken, unethical behaviour, and extreme violence.” — Matthew Campbell Imagine a gay Jeffrey Epstein who set up shop in Thailand. Only rather than peddling young girls, he traded in bodybuilders and priceless antiquities. That’s the story of the British émigré Douglas Latchford, the subject of Matthew Campbell ’s new book The Man Who Stole the Gods . It’s the true story of a man who was born in the last days of the British Raj, made his fortune in Bangkok, became the world’s leading dealer of Khmer antiquities, and was indicted for criminal conspiracy in 2019. Campbell’s tale is simultaneously a crime story, a history of Cambodia, and a parable about the relationship between Western wealth and the world’s cultural heritage. The Khmer Empire, which dominated Southeast Asia from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries, produced one of the finest civilisations of the medieval world. Angkor in the twelfth century had 750,000 people — making it ten times the size of London. After the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, every Khmer site in Cambodia was systematically…

People in this episode

Host: Andrew Keen

Guest: Matthew Campbell

Topics covered

• antiquities
• crime
• cultural heritage
• Cambodia history
• looting
• Western wealth

Keywords

• Douglas Latchford
• antiquities theft
• Khmer Empire
• cultural heritage
• Matthew Campbell
• Jeffrey Epstein
• Cambodia
• looting
• crime story

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Metropolitan Museum, Christie’s

Books & works: The Man Who Stole the Gods

Places: Thailand, Cambodia

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