Burma/Myanmar


Book Description

The crises that are Burma/Myanmar -- Important residues form the Precolonial period -- The Colonial Era's importance in understanding Burma/Myanmar today -- Independence and the civilian government (1948-1962) : mixed heritages -- The military coup, the Socialist Period (1962-1988), and the perpetuation of military rule -- The SLORC/SPDC Era (1988-present) : continuation of military power -- The nature of Burmese politics -- Issues in Myanmar's future.




Citizenship in Myanmar


Book Description

Myanmar is going through a period of profound - and contested - transition. The country has experienced widespread if sometimes uneven reforms, including the start of a peace process between the government and Myanmar Army, and some two dozen ethnic armed organizations, which had long been fighting for greater autonomy from the militarized and Burman-dominated state. This book brings together chapters by Burmese and foreign experts, and contributions from community and political leaders, who discuss the meaning of citizenship in Myanmar/Burma. The book explores citizenship in relation to three broad categories: issues of identity and conflict; debates around concepts and practices of citizenship; and inter- and intra-community issues, including Buddhist-Muslim relations. This is the first volume to address these issues, understanding and resolving which will be central to Myanmar's continued transition away from violence and authoritarianism.




Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar)


Book Description

Burma (Myanmar) is a Southeast Asian country that is emerging from crisis after more than a half century of hard-line military rule and cultural, diplomatic and economic isolation. With the dissolution of its military regime, the State Peace and Development Council, in 2011, a formally civilian but military-dominated constitutional government was inaugurated. By 2012, Burma’s president, retired General Thein Sein, had established a working relationship with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement since 1988, and after a 2012 by-election she and members of her opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), entered the new Union Parliament as legislators. However, even with the election victory of Daw Suu Kyi and the NLD in the General Election of November 2015, Burma faces daunting challenges: it is still one of the poorest countries in Southeast, fissured by longstanding ethnic conflicts that have made a nationwide peace agreement elusive and its people’s security and the environment are threatened by foreign economic exploitation. Religious discord is also widely evident, as Buddhist militants instigate violence against the country’s religious minorities, especially Muslims. Today Burma’s prospects are the most hopeful they have been for over half a century, as the country takes steps along the road to a more open society and economy. This edition of the Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar) encompasses not only current developments, but also Burma’s over 1,500 years-old recorded history and the most important features of its cultures, ethnicity, religions, society and economy. This is done through achronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.




Myanmar


Book Description

This fully revised and well illustrated 3rd edition of Burma intelligently evokes the magic and mystery of Burma, once the richest nation in Asia.




Burma (Myanmar)


Book Description

This fully revised and well illustrated 2nd edition of Burma intelligently evokes the magic and mystery of what was once the richest nation in Asia. Practical information on visas, customs, food and shopping is included.'




Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar


Book Description

For centuries, Burmese have looked to the authority of their religious tradition, Theravada Buddhism, to negotiate social and political hierarchies. Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar examines those moments in the modern history of this Southeast Asian country when religion, culture, and politics converge to chart new directions. Arguing against Max Weber’s characterization of Buddhism as other-worldly and divorced from politics, this study shows that Buddhist practice necessitates public validation within an economy of merit in which moral action earns future rewards. The intervention of colonial modernity in traditional Burmese Buddhist worldviews has created conjunctures at which public concerns critical to the nation’s future are reinterpreted in light of a Buddhist paradigm of power. Author Juliane Schober begins by focusing on the public role of Buddhist practice and the ways in which precolonial Buddhist hegemonies were negotiated. Her discussion then traces the emergence of modern Buddhist communities through the colonial experience: the disruption of traditional paradigms of hegemony and governance, the introduction of new and secular venues to power, modern concerns like nationalism, education, the public place of religion, the power of the state, and Buddhist resistance to the center. The continuing discourse and cultural negotiation of these themes draw Buddhist communities into political arenas, either to legitimate political power or to resist it on moral grounds. The book concludes with an examination of the way in which Buddhist resistance in 2007, known in the West as the Saffron Revolution, was subjugated by military secularism and the transnational pressures of a global economy. A skillfully crafted work of scholarship, Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar will be welcomed by students of Theravada Buddhism and Burma/Myanmar, readers of anthropology, history of religions, politics, and colonial studies of modern Southeast Asia, and scholars of religious and political practice in modern national contexts.




Making Enemies


Book Description

The Burmese army took political power in Burma in 1962 and has ruled the country ever since. The persistence of this government--even in the face of long-term nonviolent opposition led by activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991--has puzzled scholars. In a book relevant to current debates about democratization, Mary P. Callahan seeks to explain the extraordinary durability of the Burmese military regime. In her view, the origins of army rule are to be found in the relationship between war and state formation.Burma's colonial past had seen a large imbalance between the military and civil sectors. That imbalance was accentuated soon after formal independence by one of the earliest and most persistent covert Cold War conflicts, involving CIA-funded Kuomintang incursions across the Burmese border into the People's Republic of China. Because this raised concerns in Rangoon about the possibility of a showdown with Communist China, the Burmese Army received even more autonomy and funding to protect the integrity of the new nation-state.The military transformed itself during the late 1940s and the 1950s from a group of anticolonial guerrilla bands into the professional force that seized power in 1962. The army edged out all other state and social institutions in the competition for national power. Making Enemies draws upon Callahan's interviews with former military officers and her archival work in Burmese libraries and halls of power. Callahan's unparalleled access allows her to correct existing explanations of Burmese authoritarianism and to supply new information about the coups of 1958 and 1962.




The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century


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?




Conflict in Myanmar


Book Description

As Myanmar’s military adjusts to life with its former opponents holding elected office, Conflict in Myanmar showcases innovative research by a rising generation of scholars, analysts and practitioners about the past five years of political transformation. Each of its seventeen chapters, from participants in the 2015 Myanmar Update conference held at the Australian National University, builds on theoretically informed, evidence-based research to grapple with significant questions about ongoing violence and political contention. The authors offer a variety of fresh views on the most intractable and controversial aspects of Myanmar’s long-running civil wars, fractious politics and religious tensions. This latest volume in the Myanmar Update Series from the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific continues and deepens a tradition of intense, critical engagement with political, economic and social questions that matter to both the inhabitants and neighbours of one of Southeast Asia’s most complicated and fascinating countries.




7 Days in Myanmar


Book Description

Largely isolated from the world for more than four decades, Myanmar has made a remarkable return to the global stage following a political transformation that represents a watershed moment in the country's history. Now, for the first time ever, the rich culture, stunning landscapes and diverse peoples of the country are presented in a unique visual time capsule. Here is the new Myanmar as seen over a single week by a team of thirty famous photographers from eleven different countries. Their mission? To capture the life and spirit of Myanmar from every angle in every corner of the country. Through the downtown streets of Yangon and the handicraft centres of Mandalay, above the temple-dotted plains of Bagan and on the waters of Inle Lake, inside border towns and hilltribe villages and all the way to the furthest reaches of the north and south. The portrait they created reveals a nation full of natural beauty, old-world charm, deep spirituality and new hope. Featuring essays that provide context on Myanmar’s history and culture and hundreds of outstanding original photographs, 7 Days in Myanmar shows why the world is watching Myanmar and why Myanmar is ready for the world.