Author: Parimal Ghosh
Publisher: Manohar
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 198
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8173042314
Description
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 Brave Men of the Hills Parimal Ghosh explores how peasant militancy was first generated and then crystallized 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.
REVIEW
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 South East Asia and of peasant revolts.
-Professor R H Taylor, author of the State in Burma