Carsten Jensen’s epic journey takes him through China, Cambodia and Vietnam, with many pauses on his way to meditate on the history and customs of the people he meets. He is not a political reporter, although he does write about the Tiananmen Square massacre, the killing fields of Cambodia, the battlefields of Dien Bien Phu and their effect upon the people who survive them. Nor is Jensen a conventional travel writer. He is set apart by the sheer depth of his historical awareness, by his empathy and by the wonderful clarity of his observation.