Sue Arnold returns to Burma and the origins of her grandparents. This account of her travels makes an exotic detective story about a now seldom visited part of the world.
(15)Two journeys, one hundred years apart--that of the eccentric British explorer George Scott, who introduced the game of soccer to Burmese natives, and that of the author, charting the same dangerous terrain in a country vastly changed by colonialism, war, and politics. Andrew Marshall has written an unforgettable adventure story, the wry account of two journeys into the untraveled heart of Burma. Part travelogue, part history, part reportage, The Trouser People recounts the story of George Scott, the eccentric British explorer, photographer, adventurer, and later Colonial Administrator of Burma, who introduced the Empire's best game (soccer!) to Burmese natives and to the forbidden Wa state of headhunters, who were similarly enthusiastic about it. The second, contrasting journey is Marshall's own, taking the same dangerous path one hundred years later in a country now devastated by colonial incompetence, war, and totalitarianism. Wonderfully observed, mordantly funny, and skillfully recounted, this is journalistic travel writing at its best.
(6)Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize Laureate, mother of two, and devout Buddhist, is one of the most inspiring examples of spiritually infused politics and fearless leadership that the world has ever seen. Daughter of the martyred Burmese national hero who negotiated Burma's independence from Britain in the 1940s, Aung San Suu Kyi led the pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988. The movement was quickly and brutally crushed by the military junta, and Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.
The Voice of Hope is a rare and intimate journey to the heart of her struggle. Over a period of nine months, Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma, met with Aung San Suu Kyi shortly after her release from her first house arrest in July 1995. With her trademark ability to speak directly and compellingly, she presents here her vision of engaged compassion and describes how she has managed to sustain her hope and optimism.
(43)As the Imperial Japanese Army swept across China and South Asia at World War II's outset, closing all of China's seaports, more than 200,000 Chinese laborers embarked on a seemingly impossible task: to cut a 700-mile overland route -- the Burma Road -- from the southwest Chinese city of Kunming to Lashio, Burma. But when Burma fell in 1942, the Burma Road was severed. As the first step of the Allied offensive toward Japan, American general Joseph Stilwell reopened it, while, at the same time, keeping China supplied by air-lift from India and simultaneously driving the Japanese out of Burma.
From the breathtaking adventures of the American "Hump" pilots who flew hair-raising missions over the Himalayas to make food-drops in China to the true story of the mission that inspired the famous film The Bridge on the River Kwai, to the grueling jungle operations of Merrill's Marauders and the British Chindit Brigades, The Burma Road vividly re-creates the sprawling, sometimes hilarious, often harrowing, and still largely unknown stories of one of the greatest chapters of World War II.
