In this vital work the author offers a fresh, insightful look at today's Vietnam - a country struggling, still in its Communist thrall, with its own identity and future. The Vietnam War is obviously part of the story, but Kamm places it in its proper perspective in the context of Vietnam's rich history. This book lets us see and understand Vietnam through the eyes of the Vietnamese themselves.

The author's countless contacts enable him to strip away the cliches and take us behind the scenes, into the homes and the offices of the political leaders, the military, the economic reformers, the writers, the businessmen, the ordinary shopkeepers and farmers, and the country's solitary - and immensely brave - dissident, Duong Thu Huong. Henry Kamm's rich mosaic will radically alter our current conceptions - or misconceptions - about Vietnam. It will also leave no reader unmoved.