THE RIVER OF LOST FOOTSTEPS is a remarkable, long and dense, yet smooth reading history of Burma, now Myanmar.

Though the tale would benefit from improved chronology, it is thorough with a strong vein of irony, which unfortunately
has not changed the Luck of Burma away from poverty, corruption, isolation, destruction, starvation, mutiny, ethnic hatred, and horror.

Monarchy. Army. U Nu and U Thant. Army. ( )

Excellent read. A touch of humor, well-written, hugely informative, and written by an "insider'. tis easy to like this book which I acquired and read while in Myanmar. ( )

Excellent, highly readable and enjoyable overview of the country formerly known as Burma. My number #1 recommendation when a friend asks for an introductory book on Myanmar.

One correction: The correct date for the Portuguese travel writer Duarte Barbosa is the 1500s, not the 1600s. (He was the brother-in-law of Ferdinand Magellan and died in the Philippines on May 1, 1521--one month after Magellan.)

An additional recommendation: Not a book, but an excellent DVD I've just watched that I want to recommend to anyone interested in the history of Burma during WW2: The film is by Kon Ichikawa, and is called The Burmese Harp. The story of an imperial Japanese Army regiment that surrenders to British forces in Burma at the close of WW2, it follows the decision one of its members makes in disguising himself as a Buddhist monk and remaining behind. Made in 1956 and recently restored in high-def digital transfer, it "remains one of Japanese cinema's most overwhelming antiwar statements, both tender and brutal in its grappling with Japan's wartime legacy." It's in Japanese and Burmese with English subtitles. If you have a chance to find it in a DVD library or on-line, don't miss it. It is a movie you will not forget. ( )

Burma has been a sad place for the last 50 years, using the surrounding ring of mountain ranges and the coast to fully isolate itself from the rest of world, hiding in its own little bowl, the military government quite content with the international sanctions that are supposed to force it to open up. Only the people suffer. It wasn’t always this way. At one point, in the 15th century, with Mughals in India next door, the Arakan coast in southwest Burma formed its own coastal empire where the capital included “a mix of Arakanese, Bengalis, Afghans, Burmese, Dutch, Portuguese, Abyssinians, Persians, even Japanese Christians from Nagasaki escaping the persecution of the dictator Hideyoshi Toyotomi.” That’s a mixture worth a moment of reflection.

Thant Myint-U is the grandson of U Thant, the UN secretary-general through the 1960’s. He has written a formal history of Burma (The Making of Modern Burma), but this isn’t it. Here he focuses on the story of history, mixing the chronology, an adding in personal and family history and an odd interview here and there. He has sources (wonderful ones), but no index and only one map, albeit a very good one. He does cover everything to some degree, going back into ancient history. It’s an all absolutely fascinating history, and the book is able to capture that. The Burmese racial mixture itself is quite complex, including, among many others, Burmese, Karen, Kachin, Shan, Chinese and the Mon who at point were the dominant population in the south of the country, until they were essentially massacred our by a Burmese warlord. Some tribes in the mountainous areas are essentially independent. And there are the descents of the Portuguese and Dutch who settled in Burma long ago when it was cosmopolitan…and whose families remained in the same neighborhoods these hundreds of years.

But Myint-U’s main focus is the modern era, which begins in 1885 when the ever victorious British army sauntered in to Mandalay unopposed by the army that had once been the only one to fully defeat the Manchu armies of China, preventing an invasion, and the British simply deposed the King whose lineage went back into legendary history…and Burma has never recovered. During WWII the whole country formed a long now forgotten battlefield front that quickly went west, when the Japanese nominally “liberated” Burma, and then slowly went back east again. The Burmese eventually achieved independence from Great Britain after WWII, but were left with a mixture of allied- and Japanese-trained soldiers to lead them, and who were largely divided on ethnic lines for various reasons. Then most of the leaders were assassinated in one event on July 19, 1947, including Aung San (father of Aung San Suu Kyi), who was Burma’s great unifying hope. It was about 15 years before the military, after refining themselves by somehow winning the various civil wars where their enemies actually greatly outnumbered them but were composed of various completely unrelated groups, including a Nationalist Chinese soldiers, took over and went for an odd purity that stalled all economic development, and all political processes and debate, evicted the once large Indian population and then closed the whole country off from everyone else.

This was a supposed to be a “quick and dirty” review, but instead became a long wandering under-edited review. Well, if you’re still reading, the book comes highly recommended from me. It’s a nice find that will entertain you even if you couldn’t care less about Burma.

2010
http://www.librarything.com/topic/90167#2207635 ( )

Traces Burmese history since the fall of the last Burmese king--Military dictatorship, colonialism, Japanese invasion, economy collapsing with the American Great Depression--afterword discusses monk's walk, but comes prior to the 2008 earthquake, which further devastated the country. The role of peace-loving Buddhism seems far away in this account of Burmese history--seems not to have had much impact on the politics within the country throughout its modern period. ( )

The grandson of U Thant, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, recounts the history of Burma, interwoven with family stories and leading up to the present events. A welcome source of information on this land in turmoil.
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http://nhw.livejournal.com/1008238.html

Thant Myint-U sees the fundamental problems of the country as rooted in the disintegration of the structures of government immediately after the British conquest in 1885; from then on, the Burmese faced extraordinary hurdles in getting things together. The history of foreign involvement goes way back, of course, with for instance the Portuguese playing a very prominent role from much earlier than I had realised. But Myint-U really gets into his stride in the 20th century, and I found his account of the lessons the Burmese learnt from the Irish revolution of 1916-22 very interesting.

The story of Aung San is fascinating - imagine if the Germans had invaded Ireland in 1916, and the IRB, having been installed as a provisional government backed by Berlin, then did a deal with London to kick the Germans out in return for recognition as the rightful government; this is more or less what the Burmese did in 1941-48 with the Japanese. Aung San's successful navigation of his country to independence was remarkable, and reminiscent of Michael Collins in rather different circumstances. Like Collins, of course, he was killed by his own fellow-countrymen before the transition was complete, still in his early 30s.

Burma's history since the military coup of 1962 is a grim story of oppression and poverty. Thant Myint-U mingles Burma's recent history with his own life story, growing up a Burmese emigré in New York as the grandson of the UN Secretary-General. U Thant's funeral was the occasion of extraordinary displays of popular resistance, and of correspondingly awful repression. The River of Lost Footsteps takes the story up to the unmourned death of the dictator Ne Win, and hopes for increased international engagement in the issue. ( )

This excellent book provides a broad history of Burma from prehistoric times to the present day. Myint-U's retelling jumps about chronologically, but the narrative is still easy to follow. He also spices things up a bit with some biographical sketches of various family members, which adds some immediacy to the events he chronicles. Best of all, he does an excellent job of suppling just enough background information on the international players--Britain, India, and China chief among them--that I really felt I had learnt a great deal of world history as well, and he never loses sight of the main narrative. My only quibble with "River" is that it would have benefited from an index, as unfamiliar names and Burmese terms are sprinkled throughout the text, and it's difficult to remember precisely who did what several hundred pages later. That said, this is a lucid, well written book and should appeal to anyone with an interest in East Asia.

I have travelled and worked in Burma now since late 1995. The intriguing question for me is how the military junta survives there, when the economy and society is falling down around everyone's ears. other dictatorships fall at this point - but not this one.
U Myint's book gives a compelling account of Burma's history, adding his own personal story along the way, and as I read it, I am beginning to see more clearly just how closely today's Burmese people are caught up in thei own history - this may be at least part of the reason they are unable to get out from under the yoke of these particular oppressors.
It is a wonderful book - not the least because the author's gift for explanation and description. In this he is not alone among those from Burma who can write so captivatingly. ( )