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.

诺曼-刘易斯在法国殖民政权的暮年穿越越南、老挝和柬埔寨，见证了这些古老文明在越南战争的可怕破坏之前的样子。他创造了一幅传统社会在西方的怀抱中为保持其完整性而奋斗的画卷。他见到了皇帝和奴隶，残暴的种植园主和被殖民实验的经济需要所困的同情的法国军官。从部落的万物有灵论者到越共游击队，他一次又一次地见证了这场令人心碎的斗争，为一个处于灾难性变化边缘的社会留下了一幅重要的肖像。