Last week I taught the final class of an ambitious unit covering the history of Southeast Asia from c.990 to c.1990. The last class is designed to get everyone debating the impact of Western imperialism on the region. We discussed the material changes engendered by it, the shifts in Southeast Asian cultures and societies, and…
Month: December 2013
The Wild Wild West of Burma
Last week I attended a fantastic conference that celebrated the career of Prof. Ian Brown, my PhD. supervisor, who has recently retired. In Ian’s closing paper, he made an important reassessment of some assumptions that underpin the history of colonial Burma. He argued that John Furnivall’s influential argument that Burma experienced a uniquely dramatic increase…
Colonizing Animals 