Though it has extensive natural resources including oil, gas, teak, metals, and minerals, it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Burma/Myanmar is a place of contradictions: a picturesque land with mountain jungles and monsoon plains, it is one of the world's largest producers of heroin. Geographically strategic, Burma/Myanmar lies between the growing powers of China and India, and has a thousand-year history as an important realm in the region-yet it is mostly unknown to Westerners. More than ever, the history, culture, and internal politics of this country are crucial to understanding the breaking headlines emerging from it today and placing them in a broader context. Steinberg offers an updated second edition of Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know. Taking into account the dramatic changes the country has seen in the past two years-including the establishment of a human rights commission, the release of political prisoners, and reforms in health and education-David I. The pessimism that pervaded the society prior to the elections, and the results of that voting that prompted many foreign observers to call them a "sham" or "fraud," gradually gave way to the realization that for reasons, variously interpreted, positive change was in the air. Yet events in Myanmar since the elections of November 2010 have profoundly altered the internal mood of the society, and have surprised even Burmese and seasoned foreign observers of the Myanmar scene.
Until recently, the former British colony had one of the most secretive, corrupt, and repressive regimes on the planet, a country where Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was held in continual house arrest and human rights were denied to nearly all. It is unlikely that any country in Asia in recent years has undergone such internal policy shifts in so short a time as Myanmar.
The European Society of Cardiology Series.Oxford Commentaries on International Law.Danish media often request his analysis of events in Burma and Thailand. Mikael Gravers has been a Nordic and European scholar in NIAS and received a grant from HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark’s Fund. He has met with ethnic leaders from the Karen National Union and other ethnic organizations.įrom 1999 to 2001 Mikael Gravers was the director of the anthropological part of the interdisciplinary Thai-Danish environmental research project Forest & People in Thailand.He has published on subjects such as ethnicity, nationalism religion and politics notions of nature and environment in Burma and Thailand. His work on Burma is mainly based on archival research in the Oriental & India Office Collections, The British Library and Public Record Office, Kew in London. He has visited this area numerous times and since 1999 also conducted fieldwork among Christian and Buddhist Sgaw (Pgha G’Nyau) and Pwo in Chiang Mai and Lamphun provinces as well as among Karen refugees from Burma. The first fieldwork in Uthaithani and Kanchanaburi provinces was among the Buddhist Pwo Karen (Ga Ploung) and he speaks a proficient Pwo. Since 1970-1972 he has conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the Karen ethnic group in Thailand (and Burma). The result is a tightly focused volume that will appeal to a broad readership interested in the current situation and its implications.
Where, then, is the country heading? What are the key challenges it will face? Who are likely to be the key players in the unfolding events? What implications are there for international actors in arenas like policy, diplomacy, development and business? With contributions on topics like the political situation, international relations, ethnic and religious rivalries, and the economy, long-time observers of the situation offer insights and analysis that address these issues. The country is desperately poor, divided by ethnic and religious rivalries and continues to suffer from some of the world’s most intractable military conflicts while powerful elite factions oppose reform. While the international media have mainly focused on the economic opportunities offered by these changes and on the doings and sayings of Aung San Suu Kyi, the reality is far more complex. Recent changes in Burma/Myanmar have been called the ‘Burmese democratic spring’. Offers focused analysis by scholars and journalists on key issues.Provides essential background information and the relevant names and references.Considers where the recent changes in Burma may be leading.