Kuala Lumpur is the postmodern city write large, a city that, within the short span of a decade, has been transformed from a sleepy capital into a technological marvel with a thriving, diverse and affluent cultural life. Using anecdotes, classic Malay myths and tales, and observations based on real and imaginary wanderings through the city, Ziauddin Sardar traces Kuala Lumpur’s origins and charts the remarkable changes experienced by the city and its people – including the power struggle between Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his ex-Deputy Anwar Ibrahim. Sardar shows how a collision of cultures (Malay, Chinese, Indian, indigenous, Western) has re-emerged in the form of a new synthesis, inducing both a degree of disorientation and a unique sense of energy and excitement.