The process of modernization has brought discontinuities in collective memory. The books provide an act of collective remembrance, knitting together many voices and stories. They show the readers a world of the past before modernization began in the 1960s. Volume 1 unfolds accounts of births and rebirths in the household, making of houses and matrimony, rearing of children and livestock in a village, and husbandry of lands and forests. After sketching these fundamental aspects of existence, it details seasonable migration, backpack and caravan trade, and travel over different climatic and linguistic areas. Colours, sounds, and other sensory experiences of ordinary people are described before ending with the rhythm of the farming of major crops such as millet, rice, and wheat. Volume 2 covers the monumental architecture of dzongs (castles) and administration of the country, authority and power, cosmological concepts and beliefs, religions and rites, visualization and meditation, visual arts, and folk drama that affected the daily life of the people. Some chapters also dwell on monastic life and monkhood, and Guru Rinpoche's imprints on the land and its people.

Karma Ura is the president of the Centre for Bhutan Studies (CBS) and GNH Research. He completed his MA in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at Magdalen College, University of Oxford; an M.Phil. in Economics at the University of Edinburgh; and a Ph.D. at Nagoya University, Japan. An eminent scholar, he has held many international roles, in the Global Council of World Happiness, Earth Justice Working Group, and International Buddhist Federation.