Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future - Softcover

The Mekong is one of the world's great rivers, and by far the largest in Southeast Asia. Flowing through or beside no less than six countries - China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam - it has a rich and often turbulent history. This is a guide for the traveller - real or armchair - and anyone interested in the history of this fascinating region. Empires have risen and fallen in the lands through which the Mekong flows, and it has been linked to remarkable adventure and exploration as well as war and massacre. Now that Indochina is at peace, new dangers threaten the river's future. For more than 40 years, Milton Osborne has been fascinated by the Mekong and its history. He has lived beside it, travelled on it and written an account of its exploration in the 19th century. Here he recounts the history of the river from its earliest times to the present, a history full of the stories of remarkable men - Spanish and Portuguese freebooters and missionaries who briefly held the fate of Cambodia in their hands; French explorers who were recognized in the 19th century as the equal of Burton and Livingstone, but are now largely forgotten even in France; a martyred Cambodian monsignor and an Australian-educated Vietnamese reflecting on communist rule. In the 20th century, the Mekong was at the heart of two wars, while one of the lands along its course, Cambodia, witnessed the terrible tyranny of the Pol Pot regime. While the author's own original research has shaped his writing on the 19th and 20th centuries, the book is a distillation of the river's history from the earliest times to the present.

Milton Osborne is an internationally recognised authority on the history and politics of Southeast Asia, and in particular the countries of Indochina. He is the author of seven books on the history and politics in Southeast Asia, and is now a fulltime author and consultant on Asian issues, presenting seminars and lectures to academic and professional bodies throughout the Asia-Pacific region.