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For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burma - through sanctions and tourist boycotts - only to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship. But what do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burmas past tell us about the present and even its future? In ´The River of Lost Footsteps,´ Thant Myint-U relates the story of modern Burma, in part through a telling of his own familys history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic and appalling. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the UN Secretary General in the 1960s. And on his fathers side, the author is descended from a long line of courtiers who served at Burmas Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he portrays Burmas rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II and a sixty-year civil war that continues today and is the longest-running war anywhere in the world.