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Manohar Publishers and Distributors Brave Men of the Hills Resistance and Rebellion in Burma 1825-1932 by Parimal Ghosh
"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. [...] This book will be of interest to all historians of South Asia and of peasant revolts." (Professor R.H. Taylor, author of The State in Burma). Burma was conquered by the 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 crystallised 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 grass-roots peasant base.