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Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Lewis M. Simons's recollects his 50 years as a foreign correspondent, one whose powerful stories contributed to transforming Asia from Vietnam War-era basket case to a global boomtown that today rivals the United States.
Simons's investigative work led to the toppling of a dictator in the Philippines. He covered the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, bloody coups in Thailand, attempted genocide and societal collapse in Cambodia, and economic advance, decline and rebirth in Japan. He was expelled from India for his exclusive reporting on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's political misuse of the armed forces. Breaking his own strict rule against becoming personally involved with people whose stories he covered, he saved the life of a dying teenaged Tibetan Buddhist monk.
Simons molds the narrative of his lengthy, action-packed career from foxhole mud and backroom dirt. Layered with moments of tenderness and humor, as his camp-following family often accompanies him, the result is a masterful chronicle of war and murder; extreme poverty and suffering alongside repellent wealth and indulgence; wholesale larceny and ruling-class corruption-much of which escaped the scrutiny of other journalists. Readers who appreciate real-life historic drama will be enthralled.
List of contents
Introduction
Chapter One - Murder in Manila
Chapter Two - The Prince of Paterson
Chapter Three - A Lost and Found Decade
Chapter Four - Total Bullshit
Chapter Five - Tet
Chapter Six - Quiet No More in Malaysia
Chapter Seven - My Favorite Dictator
Chapter Eight - The Council, the Papers and the Post
Chapter Nine -Molested at Birth
Chapter Ten - Delhi Wallah
Chapter Eleven - Excess Baggage
Chapter Twelve - Stirring up Trouble in India
Chapter Thirteen - Birth and Death in Bangkok
Chapter Fourteen - Knight Rider to the Rescue
Chapter Fifteen - Filling the Dumpling
Chapter Sixteen- The Other Chinese
Chapter Seventeen - Time to Go
Chapter Eighteen - Holding the Line
Chapter Nineteen - Crossing the Line
About the Author
Index
About the author
By Lewis M. Simons - Foreword by The Dalai Lama
Summary
At a time when journalism is under attack from Trumpian charges of “lying press,” my 50 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia demonstrate that without journalists who risk their lives, American democracy is in danger of shattering.
