Anderson, John; Mandalay to Momien
This account provides a fascinating eye witness summary of two expeditions made in pursuit of what can only be described as a misconceived dream. The idea of a “back door” to China, which excited British speculative greed from the late 1860s, seemed determined to ignore both economic realities and physical geography. The British merchant community at Rangoon in the recently conquered Lower Burma, urged on by Chambers of Commerce and textile mill owners back in Yorkshire and Lancashire, convinced themselves that inland China was an enormous market simply waiting to absorb a fortune in British manufactures. In the 1940s, the Bhamo-Yunnan route came into prominence again. Some 50,000 American soldiers and locals spent three years building a 1600- km-long road from Ledo in Assam through Myitkyina to Bhamo and on to Kunming. It provided a lifeline for trucking in supplies to Chinese Nationalist troops fighting the Japanese, but was abandoned after 1945. The dream persists, however. In May 2007, The Times of London carried a report headlined, “India hopes old jungle trail can be a new road to riches” which will allow people and goods to travel from Assam to Kunming in just two days.

Ashin Kunsal Kassapa; Wonders of Mebegon Village
Historical records of an event never revealed before. Wizzardo (Siddha) Sayadaw U. Kowida, Head Master of Nagama Mountain was born at Kanthe village, western side of Shwebo township on the year 908 A.D. (330 M.E.) during the reign of King Taungthikyi Minn. He was named Maung Kanthe by his father U Tha Aung and his mother Daw Yin May. At the age of 20 years he took higher ordination as a Theravada monk at Nweta Monastery. He received direct instructions from the Indian Mahasiddha Ashin U. Upagote (his days goes back to Asoka’s period 200 B.C.) which leads him to the great accomplishment at the age of 59 years as an Iron Wizzar (Siddha) through alchemy. Since then he established Nagama Mountain and transmitted Upagotes’s instructions to several disciples. The most famous ones are the Wizzar (Siddha) Sayadaw U. Pandita, the Wizzar (Siddha) Sayadaw U. Uttamakyaw and the Wizzar (Siddha) Botaw Bo Htun Aung which their biographies are narrated on this book. The historical opening of the Wizzar (Siddha) Meditation Center at first on U. Pan Aung and Daw Phwar Kyew’s house, parents of Maung Htun Yin’s (Sanathar Sayadaw U. Tillaw Keinda) wife, was a Friday 4th July 1952 A.D. (13th waxing day of Waso 1314 B.E.) since then the Wizzars (Siddhas) tried to promote all aspects of religious affairs in a very unique way, sometimes coming themselves to the monastery and sharing their teaching and guiding those present. However, at other times they did not come themselves but used the body of Sanathar Sayadaw TJ. Tillaw Keinda by Dhatsii-him, and in the same way they shared their teaching and guided those present.

Aye, Henri-Andre; Shan Conundrun in Burma, The
The Shan Conundrum in Burma is the personal account of historical and political events over a span of sixty years from 1940s to the early 2000s. The author, a son of the Shan politician Namkham U Htun Aye who had served as Member of Parliament, state minister, and head of Shan State from the late 1940s until the mid 1970s, recounts what had happened during the tumultuous years in which his father was politically involved. Blessed with a keen interest in current affairs, Henri-André Aye reveals the racial and political problems the country is facing currently in lively anecdotes and astute observations.

Berlie, Jean A.; Burmanization of Myanmar's Muslims
This book deals with Burmanization, a cultural process similar to what is known as Sinicization in China and Sanskritization in India. It copes with selected aspects of the Burmanization process, linguistic integration, citizenship, rate of culture change and changes in value systems. The Tatmadaw government’s ethics emphasize unity, a desirable ideal, but also “one dominant ethnic group (Burman), one united country (Myanmar), and one religion (Buddhism)”. Buddhism is de facto the state religion, and Muslims and other religious minorities are not protected by the State. The Muslim population is subject to Burmanization, a socio-political strategy with the aim of assimilating the ethnic and religious minorities of Myanmar. This study makes a powerful contribution not only to the knowledge of the Muslims of Burma but also by looking both within and beyond the Muslim societies of South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Blackburn, Terence R.; Executions by the Half-Dozen: The Pacification of Burma
In the First Anglo-Burmese war of 1824-26 the British could plead, with a certain amount of justification that they were sorely provoked. Whether they were goaded sufficiently to undertake a war lasting two years, where the dead were counted in thousands, and in the case of the Europeans and the Indian sepoys, more died from disease than in battle is a moot question. That the British would win was inevitable, and when they did, they took all the Maritime Provinces, making Burma virtually landlocked, and demanded one million pounds sterling in compensation. The Second War of 1852 had no such justification, it was contrived, brought about by a Royal Navy Commodore who thought that his dignity, and by extension that of his sovereign, had been impugned. The result of this war was the loss of half the country. The Third War was as a result of the overweening ambition of the Secretary of State for India, Lord Randolph Churchill, and the weakness of the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, who “merely obeyed orders”. Within ten days of the start of the war, if it can be so called, the British had taken Mandalay, deposed the king and sent him into exile in India. It was, to paraphrase the Duke of Wellington, “only when the war has been won will your troubles begin”. Initially, 10,000 men were sent to take the country, it was to take nearly 40,000 to pacify it—a tribute to the fighting men of Burma.

Dalton, Edward Tuite; Tribal World of the Eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burma Borderlands
This is the first complete reprint of Edward Tuite Dalton’s Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal in more than 130 years. The term “Bengal” in Dalton’s time referred to what are now the Indian states of Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Tripura, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Megalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland, and the present-day country of Bangladesh. The new title is a more geographically precise description of the lands and people treated in this classic ethnography. Each tribe described by Dalton is portrayed in stunning lithographs that convey a sense of immediacy free of the staging common to Victorian ethnographic photography. The reader will discover a precious record of a tribal world now all but vanished. As languages and cultures disappear, books like Dalton’s become sole reminders of our immensely rich human diversity. Jon Miceler, a conservationist who has worked among the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh for the last seven years, has written the introduction to this reprint. A companion volume by Miceler will follow which assesses the present day situation of the tribes of the Indo-Tibetan and Indo-Burma borderlands. (With a foreword by Jon Miceler.)

Dulyapak Preecharuhh; Naypyidaw: The New Capital of Burma
This book examines the possible factors involved in the current relocation of the capital in order to enrich and enhance an understanding about contemporary Burma, or the Union of Myanmar, in various aspects—including History, Geography, Political Science, Military Science, Economics, Sociology and Urban Architecture. This pioneering work makes the argument that moving the capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw is a profound and multi-faceted strategy which will increase the power of the current military regime to exercise strong and effective control over Burma in the future. Moreover, it provides useful information concerning geographical configuration and urban characteristics inside the new capital; and lastly, this book will greatly contribute to creating an academic knowledge about geopolitical transformations in Southeast Asian urban networks in the Twenty-first Century.

George, E. C. S.; Ruby Mines District
This is the third historical reprint in the series on this subject. The other two reprints are Rubies of Mogok, which covers book 12 (chapters 44-48 of The Silken East by Scott O’Connor, published in 1904) and “Ruby Mine District” of the Burma Gazetteer. This reprint includes prints from The Illustrated London News, and The Graphic of 1888 and photographs from Natural History of 1928 (Journal of the American Museum of Natural History). It also contains an article by Robert Gordon, On the Ruby Mines Near Mogok, Burma, which was published in 1888 in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, London, and another entitled: The Geology and Gem-Stones of the Mogok Stone Tract, Burma.

Ghosh, Parimal; Brave Men of the Hills: Resistance and Rebellion in Burma, 1825-1932
“An important piece of research. The author has made a significantly new contribution to our understanding of the Burmese popular response to the imposition of British colonial administrative and economic systems between 1825 and 1932. [...] The book will be of interest to all historians of Southeast Asia and of peasant revolts. ” (Professor R.H. Taylor, author of The State in Burma) Burma was conquered by Britain in the course of three wars fought in 1825, 1852 and 1885, and colonial rule was to last till 1948, when Burma regained its lost independence. Throughout this period there were several armed uprisings against foreign rule and its social and economic ramifications. In his book Parimal Ghosh explores how peasant militancy was first generated and then crystallised into an open challenge to the colonial state. He focuses on two types of uprisings: the nineteenth-century resistance which followed the three wars of conquest, and Saya San’s revolt of 1930-3. Rather than seeing such Burmese responses as being the symptom of a colonial “pacification” process, he argues that they were organic expressions of a momentum of resistance originating among a grassroots peasant base.

Iyer, L. A. N.; Geology and Gem-stones of the Mogok Stone Tract, Burma
This reprint offers historical material on the geology and gem-stones of the Mogok stone tract in Burma. The other works on the subject that have been reprinted are Rubies of Mogok, Book of the Silken East by V.C. Scott O’Connor, with an additional article On the Ruby Mines near Mogok by Robert Gordon, published in 1888. It also contains additional illustrations from The Illustrated London News, The Graphic and Natural History, 1928, and “Ruby Mine District” of the Burma Gazetteer compiled by B.C.S. George.

Lay, Harn; Defiant Humor

Lay, Harn; Defiant Humor Vol. 2

Luce, Gordon H.; Old Burma-Early Pagan. 3 Vols. (SET)

Munier, Christophe & Myint Aung; Burmese Buddhist Murals: Vol. 1-Epigraphic Corpus of the Powin Taung Caves
book offers a systematic study of a preeminent site in the artistic and cultural heritage of Southeast Asia. With over five hundred caves, Powin Taung has for centuries attracted pilgrims and today houses eleven monasteries providing a home for about a hundred monks, novices and nuns. The caves, dug into a sandstone formation, are decorated with murals of the twenty-eight Buddhas. They depict the life of Gotama (the historical Buddha) and the Jatakas (the narratives of his previous lives). Only twenty-nine caves (regarded as the most important at the site) and one temple have captioned murals dating from the Nyaungyan and early Konbaung periods (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries). This volume publishes, for the first time, the complete original Burmese texts of these captioned murals, laid out in registers, and their English translation. With its footnotes and appendices, this book is a tool for Buddhologists, historians and art historians, linguists, archaeologists and enlightened amateurs, as well as for guides. It makes a major contribution to the dissemination of the Burmese Buddhist cultural and literary heritage. This systematic work has fifty-six color pages, and altogether four hundred photographs. For each cave it gives a floor plan and plans of the walls with murals.

Nai Pan Hla & Ryuji Okudaira; Eleven Mon Dhammasat Texts
This book contains photographic reproductions of eleven Mon Dhammasāt (code of law) texts accompanied by their English translation. Texts include: the Palm-leaf of the Dhammasāt in the Time of King Sāmanta, the Palm-leaf of the Gold-line Dhammasāt, the (Dhammavilāsa) Dhammasāt, the Dhammasāt of the Hermit Manu, the Palm-leaf of the Gold-line Mano Hermit Dhammasāt, the Dhammasāt’s Dividing and Deciding of Inheritance, the Dhammasāt (of the Hermit Manu), the Palm-leaf of the Dhammasāt, the Book of the Gold-line, the Palm-leaf of the Gold-line Dhammasaāt, the Book of the Gold-line Dhammasāt, and the Dhammasāt in Verse. A useful introduction covering the history of the Mon people and their relationship to nearby kingdoms (Myanmar, Siamese, and Khmer) provides the context for the texts and suggests possible relationships between similar texts found in neighboring countries.

O'Brien, Harriet; Forgotten Land. A Rediscovery of Burma
The book leads us through a land of elephants, pagodas and Buddha images; a country whose associations with the Empire are encapsulated in Kipling’s Road to Mandalay. It also captures the other Burma, a land of political repression and warring factions; a military dictatorship fighting ethnic rebel forces in the borderlands and set against a more recent movement struggling for democracy within the government controlled areas. Above all, this book is a personal rediscovery of an enchanting and mysterious country that somehow became locked in time.

O'Connor, V. C. Scott; Rubies of Mogok: Thabeit-Kyin, Capelan, Mogok
This reprint covers book 12 (chapters 44-48) of The Silken East: A Record of Life and Travel in Burma, which was published in 1904. This reprint has five additional photographs from Natural History 1928, the Journal of the American Museum of Natural History. These pictures show scenes from Mogok and the ruby mines. Further six illustrations are from the Illustrated London News and Graphic from 1887-1888, made during the Third Anglo-Burmese War. It also contains an article, On the Ruby Mines Near Mogok, Burma by Robert Gordon, which was originally published by the Royal Geographical Society in 1888. This reprint is part of a series to bring together historical material on the Ruby Mines District in Burma. The other works are: Ruby Mines District of the Burma Gazetteer—The Geology and Gem-Stones of the Mogok Stone Tract.

Singer, Noel F.; Vaishali and the Indianization of Arakan
A rather comprehensive description of a little-known Indianized kingdom in Arakan. The book includes history, traces of Buddhism, inscriptions, court rites, coins, religious beliefs and museum introductions.

Spiro, Melford E.; Kinship and Marriage in Burma
In a psychodynamic framework, Dr. Spiro examines cultural norms, religion, interpersonal relationships, and the roles of women and men in the village of Yeigyi, Upper Burma. The book is a remarkable contribution to knowledge concerning mate selection, marriage, domestic group composition, intrafamilial relationships and kinship in Burma. Usable as a college text in sociology/anthropology, the book is also an excellent reference work for scholars interested in kinship and marriage.