British Burma in the New Century, 1895–1918

British Burma in the New Century, 1895–1918

Author: Stephen L Keck

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-10-06

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1137364335

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

British Burma in the New Century draws upon neglected but talented colonial authors to portray Burma between 1895 and 1918, which was the apogee of British governance. These writers, most of them 'Burmaphiles' wrote against widespread misperceptions about Burma.


Forgotten Voices of the British Empire

Forgotten Voices of the British Empire

Author: Carol Ann Boshier

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-02-16

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1538159899

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This study investigates the contribution made by outsiders in accumulating knowledge from the days of the East India Company until the early twentieth century, when photography became an important tool for recording information. It focuses on heterogeneous voices on the periphery, who interacted with the indigenous population to produce knowledge in original or unexpected ways that extended beyond the limits prescribed by the term ‘colonial.’ Largely unrecognized today, their endeavors to satisfy their own intellectual curiosity, or improve their material circumstances, produced a perspective on colonial life that stripped away conventions; where their ordinary everyday experiences sometimes became extraordinary, as they forged new networks throughout the subcontinent and beyond its frontiers. Their journeys and experiences offer a discursive historical construct as significant as official reports, censuses, and surveys, and contribute towards our understanding of the diverse creative processes through which intellectual histories of the colonial state were constructed.


Imperial Military Transportation in British Asia

Imperial Military Transportation in British Asia

Author: Michael W. Charney

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-02-07

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 135008946X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Imperial Military Transportation in British Asia sheds light on attempts by royal engineers to introduce innovations devised in the UK to wartime India, Iraq, and Burma, as well as the initial resistance of local groups of colonial railwaymen to such metropolitan innovations. Michael W. Charney looks at the role of the railways in the First Burma Campaign to show how some kinds of military technology – as an example of imperial knowledge – faced resistance due to 1930s-era colonial insularity. The delay this caused significantly compromised the early defense of the colony when the Japanese invaded in 1942. Charney examines the efforts made by one engineer in particular to revive the railways and shows how this effort was responsible for the development of a truly imperial technology that was suitable for extra-European contexts and finally won acceptance in India. Incorporating newly accessible primary source material from the files of the military Director of Transportation during the Campaign, this book highlights a hitherto unfilled gap in the archival record and explores an ignored but crucial aspect of the 1942 Japanese invasion of Burma.


North Korea and Myanmar

North Korea and Myanmar

Author: Andray Abrahamian

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2018-02-20

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1476673705

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

North Korea and Myanmar (Burma) are Asia's most mysterious, tragic stories. For decades they were infamous as the region's most militarized and repressed societies, self-isolated and under sanctions by the international community while, from Singapore to Japan, the rest of Asia saw historic wealth creation and growing middle class security. For Burma, the threat was internal: insurgent factions clashed with the government and each other. For North Korea, it was external: a hostile superpower--the United States--and a far more successful rival state--South Korea--occupying half of the Korean peninsula. Over time, Myanmar defeated its enemies, giving it space to explore a form of democratization and openness that has led to reintegration into international society. Meanwhile, North Korea's regime believes its nuclear arsenal--the primary reason for their pariah status--is vital to survival.


Burmese Silver Art: Masterpieces Illuminating Buddhist, Hindu and Mythological Stories of Purpose and Wisdom

Burmese Silver Art: Masterpieces Illuminating Buddhist, Hindu and Mythological Stories of Purpose and Wisdom

Author: David C. Owens

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd

Published: 2020-06-15

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9814893501

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Burmese master silversmiths produced a magnificent body of work from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries – the Burmese Silver Age. This aesthetic and functional work is characterized by a unique decorative style and superb technical artistry. Many of the artefacts are embellished with mysterious visual narratives drawn from ancient religious and mythological sources, communicating spiritual beliefs and values that resonate to this day. Burmese silverwork is a distinct and little-known genre of silver art. This book tackles this obscurity by illuminating and describing for the first time 100 Burmese silver artefacts in a stunning photographic gallery. This silverwork – from the Noble Silver Collection – represents some of the rarest and finest quality work from the Burmese Silver Age. The centrepiece gallery of silverwork masterpieces is bookended by two well-illustrated and informative chapters that provide readers with deeper insights into Burmese silverwork: a robust frame of reference chapter summarises the 2,000-year history and cultural tradition of Burmese silverwork; and a chapter following the gallery deciphers the complex and allegorical iconography of the decoration, which gives the reader a deeper appreciation of its religious and cultural meaning and origin. This book captures the great, almost mystical, allure of Burmese silverwork – from the sublime artistry of the decoration, to the extraordinary skill of the silversmith and the profound meaning and importance of the visual narratives. In doing so, Burmese Silver Art takes its place as a definitive reference work for any art historian, collector, expert, student, or general reader interested in this hitherto-overlooked body of noble art.


Colonizing Animals

Colonizing Animals

Author: Jonathan Saha

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-11-11

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1108839401

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A pathbreaking history of British imperialism in Myanmar from the early nineteenth century to 1942 populated by animals.


Reflections on Myanmar

Reflections on Myanmar

Author: Reshmi Banerjee

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-02-17

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1000839982

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Myanmar is known for its engaging history, rich cultural heritage, and diverse ethnic communities. Its tumultuous political past has been discussed by academics and policy makers for decades; however, the land of the Shwedagon cannot only be defined by conflict and contestation. Myanmar is complex and multi-layered with innumerable issues shaping its identity and manifold interpretations creating its distinctiveness. A deeper comprehension of its past glory with thoughtful deliberation on its socio-economic challenges helps to understand the country better. This book fills this gap by focusing on four broad themes––reminiscence, restoration, re-evaluation, and resurrection. It studies interconnected issues ranging from nostalgia and belonging to Myanmar’s contribution to art and heritage (through its museums, cinema, folk traditions); from the problems of landlessness, resource dispossession, and climate change to the experience of marginalized groups. The author weaves these themes into a common narrative of discovering Myanmar through a holistic lens. The book aims to explore the country through its history, culture, communities, and challenges. A unique contribution, the book highlights the myriad facets of Myanmar by contemplating on its inherent strengths and visible weaknesses. It would be indispensable for scholars and researchers of Southeast Asian studies, Asian studies, area studies, Myanmar studies, political studies, cultural studies, and sociology.


The Global Circulation of Chinese Materia Medica, 1700–1949

The Global Circulation of Chinese Materia Medica, 1700–1949

Author: Di Lu

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-03-11

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 303124723X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores the dissemination of knowledge around Chinese medicinal substances from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries in a global context. The author presents a microhistory of the caterpillar fungus, a natural, medicinal substance initially used by Tibetans no later than the fifteenth century and later assimilated into Chinese materia medica from the eighteenth century onwards. Tracing the transmission of the caterpillar fungus from China to France, Britain, Russia and Japan, the book investigates the tensions that existed between prevailing Chinese knowledge and new European ideas about the caterpillar fungus. Emerging in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe, these ideas eventually reached communities of scientists, physicians and other intellectuals in Japan and China. Seeking to examine why the caterpillar fungus engaged the attention of so many scientific communities across the globe, the author offers a transnational perspective on the making of modern European natural history and Chinese materia medica.


On the Shadow Tracks

On the Shadow Tracks

Author: Clare Hammond

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2024-06-06

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1802062041

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

'On the Shadow Tracks harnesses the railway lines of Myanmar’s complicated past to its turbulent present, and the result is part travelogue, part history and completely absorbing. An astonishing achievement’ Joanna Lumley In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together. Her journey would take her from Myanmar's tropical south to the embattled mountain towns that border India and China. In dilapidated carriages, along tracks in disrepair, through contested ethnic states and former sites of forced labour, visiting temples, tea shops and festivals, Clare encountered a colourful and contradictory Myanmar through the stories of its people. Simultaneously a lush and evocative travelogue, an unsparing account of Myanmar's recent history, and an astonishing, conversation-shifting engagement with Britain's colonial legacy, On the Shadow Tracks is that rare and necessary thing: a book that finds and tells the truth.


Global Raciality

Global Raciality

Author: Paola Bacchetta

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-31

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 0429688261

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Global Raciality expands our understanding of race, space, and place by exploring forms of racism and anti-racist resistance worldwide. Contributors address neoliberalism; settler colonialism; race, class, and gender intersectionality; immigrant rights; Islamophobia; and homonationalism; and investigate the dynamic forces propelling anti-racist solidarity and resistance cultures. Midway through the Trump years and with a rise in nativism fervor across the globe, this expanded approach captures the creativity and variety found in the fight against racism we see the world over. Chapters focus on both the immersive global trajectories of race and racism, and the international variation in contemporary configurations of racialized experience. Race, class, and gender identities may not only be distinctive, they can extend across borders, continents, and oceans with remarkable demonstrations of solidarity happening all over the world. Palestinians, Black Panthers, Dalit, Native Americans, and Indian feminists among others meet and interact in this context. Intersections between race and such forms of power as colonialism and empire, capitalism, gender, sexuality, religion, and class are examined and compared across different national and global contexts. It is in this robust and comparative analytical approach that Global Raciality reframes conventional studies on postcolonial regimes and racial identities and expression.