The novel sets in Burma, India, and Malay, spans a century from the fall of the Konbaung Dynasty in Mandalay, through the Second World War to modern times. Focusing mainly on the early 20th Century, it explores a broad range of issues, ranging from the changing economic landscape of Burma and India, to pertinent questions about what constitutes a nation and how these change as society is swept along by the tide of modernity.The name of the novel derives from the Glass Palace Chronicle, which is an old Burmese historical work commissioned by King Bagyidaw in 1829.The story follows the fortunes  rubber estates in Malaya, businesses in Singapore, estates in Burma  which Rajkumar, with his Chinese, British and Burmese relations, friends and associates, builds up  from 1870 through the Second World War to the scattering of the extended family to New York and Thailand, London and Hong Kong in the post-war years.