Author Thant Myint-U is a former senior UN official and also the only grandson of former UN Secretary-General, U Thant. His noteworthy personal background provides the context for his latest book, The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma.
It has been getting some good reviews – from both the New York Times and the New Yorker.
I am yet to see a copy but this is obviously the type of book that New Mandala takes great interest in. If any New Mandala readers have read it, and want to kick off a discussion of Thant Myint-U’s latest contribution to understandings of Burmese history, I would be delighted to hear from you.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Susan Lin // Dec 15, 2006 at 9:26 am
I just read the book and it’s excellent. It’s beautifully written and is at times sad and poignent and at times funny and cheerful (like Burma itself, I think). It’s mainly a history (going back to ancient and medieval times) but with a lot of famly and personal history thrown in. The reviewers have focused on his last chapter (which deals with the the present situation) but there’s 12 other chapters, with a lot that connects Burmese history to international currents and events (not just for recent times but for the last 2,500 years),
Susan in SF
2 Jon Fernquest // Dec 15, 2006 at 8:36 pm
The book hasn’t arrived in Thailand yet, but a friend from the US showed me a copy last night. Hopefully, the 12 chapters that address that address pre-modern Burma will get some people interested in the dimensions of the culture and history that are usually ignored, like literature, art, and Buddhism. It’s tragic when it takes warfare and violence to get people interested in another culture, e.g. Iraq and the Middle East.
3 Jon Fernquest // Dec 16, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Let me rephrase that, specifically it’s “Buddhism in historical context” that is ignored. Here’s another book just out, that examines just that:
Powerful Learning: Buddhist Literati and the Throne in Burma’s Last Dynasty (Michael Charney, SOAS)
http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=225773
The book provides a rigorous look at premodern political culture
(i.e. the themes of the first 12 chapters of Thant Myint-U)
4 New Mandala » Burma tourism debate // May 20, 2007 at 2:32 am
[...] The Times has an article that pits Thant Myint-U against Mark Farmaner, the acting director of the Burma Campaign UK, on the question of tourism to [...]
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