The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma

What do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burmas past tell us about its present and even its future? For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burmathrough sanctions and tourist boycottsonly to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship. Now Thant Myint-U tells the story of modern Burma, and the story of his own family, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Through his prominent familys stories and those of others, he portrays Burmas rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through a sixty-year civil war that continues todaythe longest-running war anywhere in the world. The River of Lost Footstepsis a work at once personal and global, a brisk, vivid history (Philip Delves Broughton,The Wall Street Journal) that makes Burma accessible and enthralling.