New Mandala

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I write in my capacity as newly appointed book review editor for the Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Studies Group and New Mandala. I am grateful to Justin McDaniel and Andrew Walker for both conceiving of an ambitious effort to commission and make available on-line reviews of new scholarship on Mainland Southeast Asia and for offering [...]

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When I am asked I sometimes make the idle observation that many of the Burmese I know are, in general terms, very bookish, curious, intellectual types.  Burma, to take the generalisation further, is a society where knowledge is valued, and the average citizen demonstrates a passion for learning.  Of course, any stereotype of this sort [...]

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Wassana Nanuam, Lap luang phrang phak phitsadan [Secrets, Trickery, and Camouflage: The Improbable Phenomena]. Bangkok, Post Books, 2009. 303 pp. In Thai.
Soldiers, guns and coups have played a big role in Thailand’s politics for centuries. Historians think that the Front Palace incident in 1874 early in the reign of the fifth Bangkok king was actually [...]

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A Burmese language translation of this article is available here.
Gay people in Burma are resisting homophobia and marginalisation through the creative use of new communication codes. In doing so, they are making a significant contribution to linguistic diversity in Burma and raising the visibility of their community in important ways.
‘It is important to publicise these [...]

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On Saturday I had an article in The Canberra Times that surveys Burma policy and the ongoing sanctions debate.  A slightly revised version of the article is available here at Inside Story.  One of the key sections argues that:
On the one hand any such change in United States policy will be greeted as a victory [...]

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A New Mandala reader sends the following note on the background of a senior Burmese government official who represents his government at the United Nations:
I just came across some information regarding the permanent representative of Myanmar to the United Nations, U Than Swe (sometimes written Than Shwe — not, of course, Generalissimo Than Shwe) who [...]

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Robert H. Taylor, The State in Myanmar. London, Hurst & Company, 2009. xxv+555.
This book is a new edition of The State in Burma, originally published in 1987 and thought by many to be the most comprehensive account of Burma in the quarter century after Ne Win seized power in 1962. Taylor is a political scientist [...]

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Over at Inside Story I have a long analysis that discusses Burmese politics and, in particular, the question of how the generals have managed to stay in charge for so long.  It concludes:
We remain far from the day when Burma will be considered a “normal” country. But the elections of 2010 are supposed to bring [...]

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On July 1, Myanmar’s state newspapers reported the first confirmed case of swine flu in the country, a teenage girl who had come from Singapore. According to the news, she had been isolated at the general hospital and was getting better. Persons who had been in contact with her had also been quarantined.
The story resembled [...]

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My sense is that on New Mandala we could, in this our fourth year, do a better job of identifying and explicitly dealing with a wider range of social and political issues in mainland Southeast Asia.  It’s not that we do a bad job; it’s just that sometimes we don’t step back from the immediate [...]

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