Mad About the Mekong
Product details
- ISBN 9780007111152
- Weight: 230g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 19 Jun 2006
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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The story of both a dramatic journey retracing the historic voyage of France’s greatest 19th-century explorer up the mysterious Mekong river, and a portrait of the river and its peoples today.
Any notion of sailing up the Mekong in homage to Francis Garnier has been unthinkable until now. From its delta in Vietnam up through Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and on into China, the Mekong has been a no-go river, its turbulent waters fouled by ideological barriers as formidable as its natural obstacles. But recently the political obstacles have begun to be dismantled – river traffic is reviving.
John Keay describes the world of the Mekong as it is today, rehabilitating a traumatised geography while recreating the thrilling and historic voyage of Garnier in 1866. The French expedition was intended to investigate the ‘back door’ into China by outflanking the British and American conduits of commerce at Hong Kong and Shanghai. Two naval gunboats headed upriver into the green unknown, bearing crack troops, naturalists, geologists and artists. The two-year expedition’s failures and successes, and the tragedy and acrimony that marked it, make riveting reading.
John Keay is the author of four acclaimed histories: 'The Honourable Company,' about the East India Company; 'Last Post', about the imperial disengagement of the Far East; the two-volume 'Explorers of the Western Himalayas' and 'India: A History'. His books on India include 'India Discovered', 'Into India' and 'The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India was Mapped and Everest was Named'. John Keay is married with four children, lives in Scotland and is co-editor with Julia Keay of the 'Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland'.
