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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 ...
Zoya Phan was born in the remote jungles of Burma, to the Karen ethnic group. For decades the Karen have been under attack from Burma's military junta; Zoya's mother was a guerrilla soldier, her father a freedom activist. She lived in a bamboo hut on stilts by the Moei River; she hunted for edible fungi with her much-loved adopted brother, Say Say. Many Karen are Christian or Buddhist, but Zoya's parents were animist, venerating the spirits of forest, river and moon. Her early years were blissfully removed from the war. At the age of fourteen, however, Zoya's childhood was shattered as the Burmese army attacked. With their house in flames, Zoya and her family fled. So began two terrible year...
Just married and returning to live in her new husband's native land, a young Austrian woman arrived with her Burmese husband by passenger ship in Rangoon in 1953. They were met at dockside by hundreds of well-wishers displaying colorful banners, playing music on homemade instruments, and carrying giant bouquets of flowers. She was puzzled by this unusual welcome until her embarrassed husband explained that he was something more than a recently graduated mining engineer - he was the Prince of Hsipaw, the ruler of an autonomous state in Burma's Shan mountains. And these people were his subjects! She immersed herself in the Shan lifestyle, eagerly learning the language, the culture, and the his...
In June 1942 the Indian Army suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Japanese Army and subsequently endured its longest retreat ever. The Japanese forces had proved more mobile in tactics and more motivated and seasoned in warfare. As a result, the Indian Army assessed its mistakes to determine what changes were needed to rebuild itself into a more capable fighting force. Marston looks at the Indian Army as a reform-minded organization, one that was able to take lessons from this major defeat, implement the necessary reforms, and ultimately defeat the Japanese soundly in 1945. Army leaders instigated analysis of the defeat at all levels of command. Innovations in operational procedure, o...
The Reconquest of Burma Volume 1 describes the plans of the war and the conduct of operations leading to the reconquest of Burma in 1945.
This classic history, first published in 1883, is the first English-language work to provide a comprehensive history of Burma, now Myanmar, based on Burmese sources. It incorporates the early history not only of Burma proper, but also those of the surrounding kingdoms of Pegu, Taungu, Tenasserim, and Arakan, comparing when possible differing accounts of events as described in those chronicles. Includes original extensive appendixes and large foldout map.