7PM: BOOK LAUNCH - Perched atop a five-hundred-metre cliff in the far north of Cambodia, Preah Vihear temple was built roughly a thousand years ago by masons of the Angkor civilization. But modern times tragically transformed it into a battlefield prize. Cambodian factions fought for control during the country’s long civil war, and in more recent years the land around the temple has been the focus of a sometimes violent border dispute with Thailand. In “Temple in the Clouds”, author John Burgess recounts the mountaintop monument’s full history, ancient and modern, drawing on extensive research in Cambodia, Thailand, France, and the United States. Readers will find previously undisclosed material about the contentious World Court case of 1959-1962 that affirmed Cambodian ownership of the temple. Written in a lively and approachable style, with 79 illustrations, Temple in the Clouds brings facts and context to one of Southeast Asia’s greatest archaeological sites and most intractable territorial conflicts. John Burgess is a former Washington Post foreign correspondent with a long fascination with the Angkor civilisation. He first visited Preah Vihear in 1974. He has written two other books about Cambodian antiquity, Stories in Stone, which recounts the recovery of lost Khmer history through the decoding of inscriptions, and the historical novel A Woman of Angkor.