The book follows the author’s story through a decade in the city, and unravels the city’s history through successive reinventions of itself.Eentertaining and accessible, it is the fascinating chronicle of a unique city, according to a review on goodreads.com.

Kathmandu is the greatest city in the Himalayas. it is a unique survival of cultural practices that died out in India a thousand years ago. it is a jewel of world art, a hotbed of communist politics, a paradigm of failed democracy, a case study in Western intervention, and an environmental catastrophe.

Closed to the outside world until 1951 and trapped in a medieval time warp, Kathmandu’s rapid modernization is an extreme version of what is happening in many traditional societies.