The Mekong

– Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future –

“The Mekong River runs over nearly three thousand miles, beginning in the mountains of Tibet and flowing through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam before emptying into the China Sea. Its waters are the lifeblood of Southeast Asia, and first begot civilization on the fertile banks of its delta region at Oc Eo nearly two millennia ago.

In The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future, acclaimed Southeast Asia expert Milton Osborne tells the story of the peoples and cultures of the great river from these obscure beginnings to the emergence of the modern independent nations of today. Drawing on a wealth of research material gathered over forty years of studying the region, Osborne traces the Mekong’s dramatic history through the rise and fall of civilizations and the era of colonization and exploration. He details struggle for liberation during a twentieth century in which Southeast Asia has seen almost constant conflict, including two world wars, the Indochina War, the Vietnam War and its bloody aftermath – and explores the prospects for peace and prosperity as the region enters a new millennium.

In each era, Osborne brings to life the individuals who witnessed and shaped the course of eventsw along the great the river. There is Chou Ta-kuan, the thirteenth-century Chinese envoy who recorded the glory of Angkor Wat, the capital of the Khmer Empire. There are Iberian mercenaries Blais Ruiz and Diego Veloso, whose involvement in the intrigues of Cambodia’s royal family shook Southeast Asia’s politics in the sixteenth century. And there are the revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh, whose campaigns to liberate Vietnam from the French and unify the nation under communism changed the course of history.

Vibrant, insightful, and eminently readable, The Mekong is a rousing narrative history of a dynamic region …”