The most famous first-hand account of the Kingdom of Angkor was left to us by the imperial Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan. But Zhou's was not the only portrait of Angkor and the kingdoms that came before it the Empire Looks South draws on other early Chinese sources to provide new and engrossing perspectives on early Cambodia up to and including the time of Angkor. These sources include accounts in official Chinese histories, descriptions by Buddhist monks, the reflections of Daoists searching for immortality, and reports by Chinese merchants in pursuit of perfumes and other exotic goods. Many of the accounts are of the first kingdom of Cambodia, Funan, centred on the lower Mekong. Long regarded as a major centre of regional trade, the book makes clear that Funan was also a major source of Buddhist learning. the Empire Looks South provides portraits of Funan's first queen and kings, its people, its prosperous land, its boats shaped like fish, and its arduous trials by ordeal. After Funan's mysterious demise in the seventh century, it was succeeded by the state or states of Zhenia, the Chinese name for Cambodia until the time of Zhou Daguan. The Empire Looks South describes the royal government and customs of Zhenia, while taking account of Cambodia's likely fragmentation during the early centuries of Zhenia into several polities.

From the ninth until the eleventh century the Chinese record falls silent, just as the Kingdom of Angkor was taking shape. Various reasons for this 'freeze' are considered, among them the nature of Angkor as an inland agricultural society. the book concludes with accounts of Angkor in its final centuries, including an updated translation of Zhou Oaguan's Record, and Ming dynasty descriptions of Angkor during its decline. The book tell its story through readable translations of important texts, some of them done in English for the first time, and all of them set in historical context. the work concludes with several informative appendices, among them a portrait of Linyi, the pre-Vietnamese kingdom that was early Cambodia's neighbour, again drawn from Chinese sources.