What is Vietnam today? A nation that is experiencing something like peace for the first time in two millennia. A nation of 60 million, including ethnic Viets and remote hill tribe minorities. An incredibly diverse landscpe that ranges from tropical beaches and mangrove swamps to picture-postcard rice paddies and thick rainforest. Vietnam is Asia"s least developed nation, a country in economic crisis. But it is still a place under intense scrutiny by Japanese, European, and - secretly, because of a trade embargo - American investors. It is a nation of contradictions - a communist state with micro-scale capitalism thriving in the streets; America"s deadly enemy, yet seemingly devoid of anyone who bears ill will toward the US; a poorly developed nation, yet with an historic architecture that rivals any in Asia. In chapters organized geographically, from South to North, this book explores the many faces of Vietnam today both in text and in photographs.