Wendy Law-Yone was fifteen at the time of Burma's military coup in 1962. The daughter of Ed Law-Yone, daredevil proprietor of Rangoon Nation, Burma's leading postwar English-language daily, she experienced firsthand the perils and promises of a newly independent Burma.

On the eve of Wendy's studies abroad, Ed Law-Yone was arrested, his newspaper shut down, and Wendy herself was briefly imprisoned. After his release, Ed fled to Thailand with his family, where he formed a government-in-exile and tried, unsuccessfully, to foment a revolution. Emigrating to America with his wife and children, Ed never gave up hope that Burma would adopt a new democratic government. While he died disappointed, he left in his daughter's care an illuminating trove of papers documenting the experiences of an eccentric, ambitious, humorous, and determined patriot, vividly recounting the realities of colonial rule, Japanese occupation, postwar reconstruction, and military dictatorship. This book tells the twin histories of Law-Yone's kin and country, a nation whose vicissitudes continue to intrigue the world.