"In 2005, Lieutenant Colonel Ye Htut was assigned to Myanmar’s Ministry of Information, where he later played an active role in General Thein Sein’s 2011-16 regime. He became deputy information minister in 2012, spokesman for the president in 2013 and the minister of information from 2014-16. Hence, he was both an actor and a witness to the country’s political transition to democracy. Ye Htut provides rich detail on the interplay between the president’s office, the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and the civilian National League for Democracy (NLD). His book profiles the main actors, their motivations and the frictions between the legislature and the president during the troubled passage to civilian power-sharing. The book does not dwell on the painful mass uprisings of 1988, or why the junta allowed the transition in the first place. Nevertheless, writing a tell-all book is a brave errand when many powerful players remain alive and involved in politics..."