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The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma
Author: Thant Myint-u
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For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burmathrough sanctions and tourist boycottsonly to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship. But what do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burmas past tell us about the present and even its future?In The River of Lost Footsteps, Thant Myint-U tells the story of modern Burma, in part through a telling of his own familys history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic, and appalling. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the UN secretary-general in the 1960s. And on his fathers side, the author is descended from a long line of courtiers who served at Burmas Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he portrays Burmas rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II, and a sixty-year civil war that continues today and is the longest-running war anywhere in the world.**The River of Lost Footsteps is a work both personal and global, a distinctive contribution that makes Burma accessible and enthralling.Thant Myint-U, educated at Harvard and Cambridge, has served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations, in Cambodia and in the former Yugoslavia, and was more recently the head of policy planning in the UNs Department of Political Affairs. He lives in New York City. For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burma through sanctions and tourist boycottsonly to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship.Now Thant Myint-U tells the story of modern Burma, and the story of his own family. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from his job as schoolmaster in a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the United Nations secretary-general in the 1960s. And he is descended on his fathers side from a line of courtiers who served at Burmas Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and those of others, he portrays Burmasrise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II, and a sixty-year civil war that continues todaythe longest-running war anywhere in the world.[B]rilliant . . . The River of Lost Footsteps is a balanced, thorough, and serious history, but it is also a polemic, firm in its view that the current international campaignpursuing this policy of isolating one of the most isolated countries in the worldis moving in the wrong direction.New Yorker[B]rilliant . . . The River of Lost Footsteps is a balanced, thorough, and serious history, but it is also a polemic, firm in its view that the current international campaignpursuing this policy of isolating one of the most isolated countries in the worldis moving in the wrong direction.New YorkerMr. Thant eloquently and mournfully recites the dismal history of the last half century and, in analyzing the countrys nascent democracy movement, holds out only the slimmest of hopes for a better future. It will not come through economic and diplomatic sanctions, of that he is convinced. Trade and more engagement, especially more tourism, might let in badly needed light and air. But trying to topple the regime by isolating it would, he argues, be disastrous.William Grimes, *The New York Times*Thant Myint-Us narrative is full of rich details and colorful characters like Bayinnaung, a 16th-century king who led a mighty elephant corps into battle, defeating neighboring Siam . . . If it could somehow be set on a different course, Thant Myint-U suggests, Burma could once again become an important player in Asia.Joshua Kurlantzick, *The Washington Monthly***Fascinating . . . [Thant] gives us both the savory details and the cruelties of colonialism, as well as a rare for feel for palace intrigue. In the process, he suggests that isolation is in fact just what the military regime feeds on. Its in its blood.*Pico Iyer, Time This new book has already received a number of positive reviews, and so is most likely already on the acquisition list for many libraries, where it certainly deserves to be. Best appreciated as a popular history, Thant Myint-Us book covers Burmas distant past to the present day in an engaging style, with many intriguing characters and dramatic moments . . . The best chapters are those that describe Burmas occupation by the Japanese during WW II and the postwar drive to independence. These chapters show the benefit of the authors own long-standing research interests, and are valuable reading for anyone interested in anticolonial movements and in Japanese military activity in South Asia in WW II. The chapters covering the authors personal history are also of general interest, offering a sense of a different Burma than the one that readers may be familiar with from newspaper accounts of the countrys current regime, and providing a more informed perspective on this now isolated place. Highly recommended.S. Maxim, University of California, Berkeley, Choice* This vivid and well-told history opens in the watershed year 1885, when the British seized Burma, abolished the monarchy and made the country part of British India. The trauma transformed Burmese life and fostered a pervasive feeling of humiliation-the author highlights an incident in Rangoon when an elderly Englishman tapped young U Thant on the shoulder with a cane to force him to give up his seat on a bench. Somehow, the British view of Burma as undisciplined morphed into the Burmese self-perception that they were unsuited to democratic government, says the author. The books main focus is on the modern era, especially the time since World War II, which devastated Burma and led to independence and the still-ongoing civil war. Foreign interventions (by the U.S., Thailand, the Soviet Union, China) worsened the chaos. Since 1962, a military dictatorship installed by the late General Ne Win has ruled, weakening institutions and isolating Burma from the world community. Hampered by past failures and a misplaced penchant for utopian thinking, the Burmese must open up to different ideas and build new institutions if they are ever to achieve democracy, says the author. Further isolation by the West will not help. With wide interest in Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and others opposing the ruling generals, this warrants attention.Kirkus ReviewsAnalysis of Burma has been singularly ahistorical, Thant Myint-U, a senior officer at the U.N., observes. With an eye to what the past might say ab **
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Author: Marie-Luise Angerer
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Desire is a term often used in conjunction with the subject. This desire is directed towards the real, which is defined as the generic core of the linguistic order. As a result of the focus on affect, the three termsdesire, the subject, the realhave been fundamentally shaken up and called into question. Affect, in various forms, is now a matter of concern across a wide range of disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, the humanities, and social sciences. All of these fields have a declared interest in affect, in emotions and sensations, in pathos, passions, and the senses. Desire After Affect argues that this affective euphoria cannot be explained solely in terms of a repression of language, logos, and reason. It argues that the affective turn is symptomatic of a fundamental shift in modes of thinking about the human condition. It explores what this means for the human and the posthuman, animal and machine, and calls for a new theory of subjectivation, a philosophy of media affect. **ReviewDesire After Affect offers a strong analysis how affect has been placed at the centre of posthuman theory. Angerers take is reflective, clear and inspiring in how it shows the nuances of the concept that marks a historical shift from psychoanalysis to neurosciences. The book is of high relevance to scholars in media, contemporary arts and cultural theory. (Jussi Parikka, University of Southampton, author of A Geology of Media.) Forget the cognitive revolution, think affect. Marie-Luise Angerer is very convincing in her study of affect and desire, describing what most of us are aware of without being able to explain it (which is a perfect illustration of the book) subjectivity and eroticism are changing, art and media are showing the way. Based on a very thorough study, drawing on authors ranging from Helmholtz to Malabou, with Freud, Lacan, Deleuze and Braidotti in between, this book presents the reader with an uncanny mirror image. I am what the cyborg feels might become the new cogito. (Paul Verhaeghe, Head of the Department of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Consulting at Ghent University and author of What About Me?) Desire After Affect represents a major intervention into one of the leading debates in the Humanities today. Translating and extending the original German version published in 2007, this English edition arrives at a timely moment of critical reflection on the so-called affective turn, which looks increasingly like an epistemological break. If sexuality was diagnosed by Foucault as the organising discourse of human subjectivity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Marie-Luise Angerer examines how and why affect has become its replacement in the twenty-first. Rather than running towards the bright lights of the promise of affect, as so many other have done, Angerer situates its discursive legacies within an unlikely convergence of very different theoretical frameworks, cautioning us to consider some of its more troubling implications. Displaying a breath-taking range of knowledge of critical theory, philosophy and psychoanalysis, this book speaks to a significant challenge to the terms of knowledge production across the arts and the sciences. Delivered with clarity and precision, yet always expansive in its terms of reference, Angerers book is a welcome intervention into this contested field of enquiry. (Jackie Stacey, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts and Languages (CIDRAL) at the University of Manchester) Each chapter of Desire After Affect analyses the dispositif of affect from a different angle. The somatic turn, the humanposthumantranshuman debate, neurobiology, sex, the digital and the unconscious are woven together in the attempt to argue for the replacing of the sexual subject altogether in favour of affect, and the uncovering of desire after affect as momentary time lag or temporal gap []The temporal gap of reaction the moment of a half-second is Angerers locus of desire after affect, and the conceptual work done to reach this climactic point is impressive indeed. (Radical Philosophy) About the AuthorMarie-Luise Angerer is professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. The focus of her research is on media technology, affect, neuroscientific reformulations of desire and sexuality. Her most recent publications include Choreography, Media, Gender (edited with Y. Hardt and A. Weber diaphanes, 2013), and Timing of Affect (edited with B. Bosel and M. Ott diaphanes and University of Chicago Press, 2014). Nicholas Grindell has been living and working in Berlin as a translator since 1993, specializing in the history and theory of the arts. Recent translations include books by Jorg Heiser, Isabelle Graw and Manfred Hermes (all Sternberg Press) and a volume of poetry by Monika Rinck (Burning Deck Press).
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