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Author: Michael Aung-Thwin Publisher: Reaktion Books ISBN: 1861899394 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
In A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times, Michael Aung-Thwin and Maitrii Aung-Thwin take us from the sacred stupas of the plains of Pagan to grand, colonial-era British mansions, revealing the storied past and rich culture of this country. The book traces the traditions and transformations of Myanmar’s communities over nearly three millennia, from the relics of its Neolithic civilization to the splendors of its pre-colonial kingdoms, its encounters with British colonialism and the struggles for the republic that followed the end of World War II. The authors also consider the complexities of present-day life in Myanmar and examine the key political events and debates of the last twenty-five years that have brought the world’s attention to the country. By exploring current developments within the broader patterns of Myanmar's history, culture and society, they provide a nuanced perspective on the issues and questions surrounding Myanmar’s future. This updated edition considers the changes that have taken place since the elections of 2010, the reforms that the civilian government introduced, and the ramifications of the country's new international status. It also assesses the implications of the 2012 by-elections, the ensuing political dynamics among various stakeholders, and the continuing socio-economic challenges facing Myanmar in the twenty-first century. The most comprehensive history of Myanmar ever published in the English language, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Southeast Asian history and will surprise, challenge, and inform in equal measure.
Author: Michael Aung-Thwin Publisher: Reaktion Books ISBN: 1861899394 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
In A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times, Michael Aung-Thwin and Maitrii Aung-Thwin take us from the sacred stupas of the plains of Pagan to grand, colonial-era British mansions, revealing the storied past and rich culture of this country. The book traces the traditions and transformations of Myanmar’s communities over nearly three millennia, from the relics of its Neolithic civilization to the splendors of its pre-colonial kingdoms, its encounters with British colonialism and the struggles for the republic that followed the end of World War II. The authors also consider the complexities of present-day life in Myanmar and examine the key political events and debates of the last twenty-five years that have brought the world’s attention to the country. By exploring current developments within the broader patterns of Myanmar's history, culture and society, they provide a nuanced perspective on the issues and questions surrounding Myanmar’s future. This updated edition considers the changes that have taken place since the elections of 2010, the reforms that the civilian government introduced, and the ramifications of the country's new international status. It also assesses the implications of the 2012 by-elections, the ensuing political dynamics among various stakeholders, and the continuing socio-economic challenges facing Myanmar in the twenty-first century. The most comprehensive history of Myanmar ever published in the English language, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Southeast Asian history and will surprise, challenge, and inform in equal measure.
Author: Thant Myint-U Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 1324003308 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
A New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2019 A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2020 “An urgent book.” —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times During a century of colonialism, Burma was plundered for its natural resources and remade as a racial hierarchy. Over decades of dictatorship, it suffered civil war, repression, and deep poverty. Today, Burma faces a mountain of challenges: crony capitalism, exploding inequality, rising ethnonationalism, extreme racial violence, climate change, multibillion dollar criminal networks, and the power of China next door. Thant Myint-U shows how the country’s past shapes its recent and almost unbelievable attempt to create a new democracy in the heart of Asia, and helps to answer the big questions: Can this multicultural country of 55 million succeed? And what does Burma’s story really tell us about the most critical issues of our time?
Author: William J. Topich Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0313357250 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 209
Book Description
This text provides a thorough examination of the history of Myanmar from Neolithic times to the present. Myanmar has experienced a seemingly endless series of conquerors, dating from prehistoric times through the reign of Kublai Khan's Mongol forces beginning in the late 1200s, all the way through the modern era, when it was subject to both British colonial control and invasion by the Japanese during World War II. The History of Myanmar provides a detailed, historical overview of the key people, places, and events in this often-overlooked country's past and present. It examines the history of Myanmar, from Neolithic times to all of its ruling dynasties to the modern era in a chronological manner, providing a contextual framework for the further exploration of its complex history. This text pays special attention to the unique circumstances that led to the formation of the modern nation of Myanmar.
Author: Richard Ovenden Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674241207 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.
Author: Goh Geok Yian Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute ISBN: 9814786020 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
The archaeological site of Bagan and the kingdom which bore its name contains one of the greatest concentrations of ancient architecture and art in Asia. Much of what is visible today consists of ruins of Buddhist monasteries. While these monuments are a major tourist attraction, recent advances in archaeology and textual history have added considerable new understanding of this kingdom, which flourished between the 11th and 14th centuries. Bagan was not an isolated monastic site; its inhabitants participated actively in networks of Buddhist religious activity and commerce, abetted by the site’s location near the junction where South Asia, China and Southeast Asia meet. This volume presents the result of recent research by scholars from around the world, including indigenous Myanmar people, whose work deserves to be known among the international community. The perspective on Myanmar’s role as an integral part of the intellectual, artistic and economic framework found in this volume yields a glimpse of new themes which future studies of Asian history will no doubt explore. span, SPAN { background-color:inherit; text-decoration:inherit; white-space:pre-wrap }
Author: Thant Myint-U Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 0374707901 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 412
Book Description
For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burma—through sanctions and tourist boycotts—only to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship. But what do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burma's past tell us about the present and even its future? In The River of Lost Footsteps, Thant Myint-U tells the story of modern Burma, in part through a telling of his own family's history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic, and appalling. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the UN secretary-general in the 1960s. And on his father's side, the author is descended from a long line of courtiers who served at Burma's Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he portrays Burma's rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II, and a sixty-year civil war that continues today and is the longest-running war anywhere in the world. The River of Lost Footsteps is a work both personal and global, a distinctive contribution that makes Burma accessible and enthralling.
Author: Michael A. Aung-Thwin Publisher: University of Hawaii Press ISBN: 0824874412 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
Scholars have long accepted the belief that a Theravada Buddhist Mon kingdom, Rāmaññadesa, flourished in coastal Lower Burma until it was conquered in 1057 by King Aniruddha of Pagan—which then became, in essence, the new custodian and repository of Mon culture in the Upper Burmese interior. This scenario, which Aung-Thwin calls the "Mon Paradigm," has circumscribed much of the scholarship on early Burma and significantly shaped the history of Southeast Asia for more than a century. Now, in a masterful reassessment of Burmese history, Michael Aung-Thwin reexamines the original contemporary accounts and sources without finding any evidence of an early Theravada Mon polity or a conquest by Aniruddha. The paradigm, he finds, cannot be sustained. How, when, and why did the Mon Paradigm emerge? Aung-Thwin meticulously traces the paradigm's creation to the merging of two temporally, causally, and contextually unrelated Mon and Burmese narratives, which were later synthesized in English by colonial officials and scholars. Thus there was no single originating source, only a late and mistaken conflation of sources. The conceptual, methodological, and empirical ramifications of these findings are significant. The prevalent view that state-formation began in the maritime regions of Southeast Asia with trade and commerce rather than in the interior with agriculture must now be reassessed. In addition, a more rigorous look at the actual scope and impact of a romanticized Mon culture in the region is required. Other issues important to the field of early Burma and Southeast Asian studies, including the process of "Indianization," the characterization of "classical" states, and the advent and spread of Theravada Buddhism, are also directly affected by Aung-Thwin’s work. Finally, it provides a geo-political, cultural, and economic alternative to what has become an ethnic interpretation of Burma’s history. An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched, a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. The open-access version of this book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that the work may be freely downloaded and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require permission from the publisher.
Author: Craig Lockard Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199721963 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
Here is a brief, well-written, and lively survey of the history of Southeast Asia from ancient times to the present, paying particular attention to the region's role in world history and the distinctive societies that arose in lands shaped by green fields and forests, blue rivers and seas. Craig Lockard shows how for several millennia Southeast Asians, living at the crossroads of Asia, enjoyed ever expanding connections to both China and India, and later developed maritime trading networks to the Middle East and Europe. He explores how the people of the region combined local and imported ideas to form unique cultures, reflected in such striking creations as Malay sailing craft, Javanese gamelan music, and batik cloth, classical Burmese and Cambodian architecture, and social structures in which women have often played unusually influential roles. Lockard describes colonization by Europeans and Americans between 1500 and 1914, tracing how the social, economic, and political frameworks inherited from the past, combined with active opposition to domination by foreign powers, enabled Southeast Asians to overcome many challenges and regain their independence after World War II. The book also relates how Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam are now among the fastest growing economies in the world and play a critical role in today's global marketplace.
Author: Azeem Ibrahim Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 1849049734 Category : Burma Languages : en Pages : 259
Book Description
The Rohingya are a Muslim group who live in Rakhine state (formerly Arakan state) in western Myanmar (Burma), a majority Buddhist country. According to the United Nations, they are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. They suffer routine discrimination at the hands of neighboring Buddhist Rakhine groups, but international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) have also accused Myanmar's authorities of being complicit in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslims. The Rohingya face regular violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, extortion, and other abuses, a situation that has been particularly acute since 2012 in the wake of a serious wave of sectarian violence. Islam is practiced by around 4% of the population of Myanmar, and most Muslims also identify as Rohingya. Yet the authorities refuse to recognize this group as one of the 135 ethnic groups or 'national races' making up Myanmar's population. On this basis, Rohingya individuals are denied citizenship rights in the country of their birth, and face severe limitations on many aspects of an ordinary life, such as marriage or movement around the country. This expose of the attempt to erase the Rohingyas from the face of Myanmar is sure to gain widespread attention.
Author: Michael Aung-Thwin
Author: Michael Aung-Thwin
Author: Thant Myint-U
Author: William J. Topich
Author: Richard Ovenden
Author: Goh Geok Yian
Author: Thant Myint-U
Author: Fredric Roberts
Author: Michael A. Aung-Thwin
Author: Craig Lockard
Author: Azeem Ibrahim