Angkor: Cambodia's Wondrous Khmer Temples

Dawn Rooney

Odyssey 2008
A book review by Danny Yee © 2009 https://dannyreviews.com/
Rooney's Angkor is the best and most comprehensive single volume guide to Cambodia's Angkor-era temple ruins, at least in English.

It has 250 pages of information about the different sites, broken up into fourteen "itineraries", or groups of sites that can conveniently be visited in the one trip (probably a half or full day for most people). The information provided includes overviews of construction history and site layout (with plans), suggested visit routes, and comments on notable carvings, structures and other features. This is illustrated with colour photographs.

The scope extends beyond the well-known sites, and includes temples quite some distance from the Angkor area itself. Groups 13 and 14, for example, are "Sites North of Phnom Penh" and "Sites South of Phnom Penh".

In addition to the information about individual sites, there are 150 pages of background on Angkor civilisation, architecture, religion, etc. There are also 50 pages of general travel information, including short guides to Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. Visitors to Cambodia primarily interested in the temple ruins could use Rooney as their only guidebook.

December 2009

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- books about Southeast Asia + Southeast Asian history
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%T Angkor
%S Cambodia's Wondrous Khmer Temples
%A Rooney, Dawn
%I Odyssey
%D 2008
%O hardcover
%G ISBN-13 9789622177277
%P 488pp