General Ne Wins Legacy of Burmanization in Myanmar

This book focuses on how Burmanization created and reinforced ethnic divides since the 1962 coup detat. when General Ne Win concentrated all authority in the Burmese speaking army. Background research for the book includes Burmese language materials from the Burmese Socialist Party (BSP) and others that describe with what the BSP believed in their own terms. This is unique from previous works on the topic which either simply pointed out that the policies didnt work and therefore are uninteresting, or to claim that they were necessary given the chaos of the previous regime. The authors agree that Ne Wins policies didnt work. However, the book goes further by elaborating why Burmanization policies developed in the 1960s are important for understanding Burmese society today. Most importantly, Ne Wins ideology reflects how patterns of interethnic relationships in Myanmar lead to the intractability of the battles in early twenty-first century Myanmar.