Bangkok, Thailand: Asia Books 2003. Paperback, 279 pages.
Design: Creative Attitude. Photo: Piyavit Thongsa-ard.

Found this at the Tampere main public library book swap shelf.

Back cover:
A Sympathetic Yet Irreverent Glimpse into Life in One of the Few Remaining Communist Nations.
You won't find Laos in many world records. It's not the smallest nation in the world and it's certainly not the largest It's not the poorest or the richest either. It is, however, the most heavily bombed country in history. During the Vietnam War, the US dropped more ordnance on Laos alone than it did during all of WWII. In 1975 the communists took over, and the world forgot about this landlocked nation that for centuries has been just a political pawn.
Two decades later, Laos re-opened its borders, and Brett Dakin was hired as a consultant at the government's tourism authority; a sudden leap from his Princeton classrooms to Laos' corridors of power and living rooms of the poor. Here, among others, you'll meet the author's boss, a wealthy general whose power and reputation scares his countrymen; a prince with connections to the French colonial past, now struggling to survive under the communists; an American pilot who fought during the war and never returned; and a group of rich Lao twenty-somethings who have all the money they could want, but cannot find contentment in their homeland.
This is a first-hand account of a poor country struggling with economic crisis, political instability, and the legacy of war. Above all, it is the story of a young American coming to terms with his country's role in the world at the beginning of a new century.
”No other personal account of contemporary Laos is as informative, under-the-surface, and well-written as Another Quiet American. By paying close attention to Lao and falang [foreign] lives around him, Dakin makes Vientiane jump off the printed page.”
Joe Cummings, author of Lonely Planet Laos.

About the Author:
Brett Dakin grew up in London and has lived in New York, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Vientiane, Vienna, and Sarajevo. He has worked for the Japanese parliament, the US Department of State, the United Nations, and the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
His writing has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, the Harvard Human Rights Journal. The Christian Science Monitor, the Journal of Oriental Studies, and the International Journal of Comparative Sociology. Brett is co-author of the Insight Guide to Laos & Cambodia, and was Laos correspondent for Traveller magazine.
He now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is a student at Harvard law School.


Brett Dakin at brettdakin.com
Another Quiet American at brettdakin.com

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Reserved for garibaldisghost who chose it from Vekiki's European Non-Fiction VBB.

Due to problems with my eyes, I've been reading this book for months. That's why I can't really say much about it except that I found it truly interesting. It may be partly outdated but it didn't bother me since I didn't know much about Laos anyway.

Finally, it's in the mailbox and will leave it for UK tomorrow around 8 am. I'm sorry it took me this long to send this book to you. Happy reading!

So sorry for the delay in acknowledging the safe receipt of this book.

It came just before Christmas and I completely forgot to do the JE.

Thanks for sending it.

I left this in the waiting room next to the arthritis leaflets.