From Michael Herr's Dispatches to films Platoon, Apocalypse Now and The Killing Fields, the Vietnamese War has been dissected in an avalanche of books, television series and films. The state of modern Vietnam, however, with its violent mixture of French colonialism, American imperialism and ancient imperial traditions has escaped attention. Murphy shares Vietnam's mixed background, having a French mother and a British father and being born in the United States. Growing up as a child during the war that defined the US, a close relative was one of the last soldiers to be killed and flown back in a body bag in the 1970s. In this book he once again confronts his history on a visit to Vietnam through portraits of the people he meets, from the US-educated Khmer to the last surviving member of the imperial family.