<\/a><\/p>\nThe Making of Modern Burma by Thant Myint Oo
\nThis is a good history book. It provides the reader with a fairly broad background history of Burma (describing ‘traditional’ (ie 18th and early 19th century) society, culture, religion, politics, etc) , then narrates in a straight forward way what the author describes as the country formative transition to the modern world – the nineteenth and early centuries, when the region which we now know as Burma was created and annexed to the British Indian empire.
\nIts not only about Burma though – it also about how(as the author explains in his conclusions many medium sized non-western country, which remained independent until late in the nineteenth century, tried desperately to ‘modernize'(Siam, Persia, Egypt are other obvious examples) and failed – and the consequences of this failure, which in Burma’s case, echos still today<\/p>\n
It also has lots of amusing stories, annecdotes etc. Its fairly focused however on its key theme, and one wishes at times for a better view of what was going on in the Shan states and other parts of what become ‘modern Burma’.<\/p>\n
Its a good read if youre interested in either Asian or British colonial history.<\/p>\n"},"caption":{"rendered":"
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