A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam New Edition
Author(s): Norman Lewis (Author)
Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd
Publication Date: 29 Aug. 2003
Edition: New
Language: English
Print length: 336 pages
ISBN-10: 090787133X
ISBN-13: 9780907871330
Book Description
a poignant description of Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam in 1950, with all their beauty, gentleness, grandeur and intricate political balance intact – Restores this lost world, like a phoenix, from the ashes of the Vietnam war and its aftermath – shows the Vietnamese guerilla movement in its infancy, ranged against the French colonial powers, and the early affects of imported Western materialism – a best-seller when first published, and venerated by all the Saigon-based war correspondents in the ’70s – inspired Graham Greene to go to Vietnam and write The Quiet American
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From the Inside Flap
Travelling through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the twilight of the French colonial regime, Norman Lewis witnesses these ancient civilisations as they were before the terrible devastation of the Vietnam War. He creates a portrait of traditional societies struggling to retain their integrity in the embrace of the West. He meets emperors and slaves, brutal plantation owners and sympathetic French officers trapped by the economic imperatives of the colonial experiment. From tribal animists to Viet-Minh guerillas, he witnesses this heart-breaking struggle over and over, leaving a vital portrait of a society on the brink of catastrophic change.
About the Author
Norman Lewis is England’s finest, living travel writer. He has written a dozen travel books, including such masterpieces as Naples’44, Golden Earth and The Honoured Society. He has also written thirteen novels. Lewis regards his life’s major achievement to be the reaction to an article written by him entitled Genocide in Brazil, published in 1968. This led to a change in Brazilian law relating to the treatment of Indians, and to the formation of Survival International, which campaigns for the rights of indigenous peoples.
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