SOAS Research Online

Abstract

There is a lot to recommend the volume to scholars of contemporary Myanmar and Southeast Asia. But there are also some gems that if identified correctly by the reader can lend themselves usefully to broader historiographical projects. One of the limits of the volume is that while it succeeds in places in showing how work on pre- contemporary Southeast Asia can be relevant to an understanding of what is happening locally today, with the exception of Maxime Boutry, Karin Dean, and a few others, the contributors are often unable to demonstrate how looking at the local phenomena they examine can be lent to better understandings of Southeast Asia historically. In other words, border-making geographically is well recognised in the volume, but relational periodization is not enunciated so well. While the distinction between lowland and highland, on the one hand, and lowland and maritime, on the other, comes out clearly, the tacitly accepted division between modern and contemporary Myanmar and the Myanmar of the past (before World War II) is not challenged with the same vigour.