The River of Lost Footsteps

A Personal History of Burma

Thant Myint-U

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks

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What do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burma’s past tell us about its present and even its future? 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 boycotts—only 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, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Through his prominent family’s stories and those of others, he portrays Burma’s rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through a sixty-year civil war that continues today—the longest-running war anywhere in the world.

The River of Lost Footsteps is a work at once personal and global, a “brisk, vivid history” (Philip Delves Broughton, The Wall Street Journal) that makes Burma accessible and enthralling.

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Chapter One 
The Fall of the Kingdom
 
The divinity most worshiped in Burma is precedence.
—Captain Henry Yule, Mission to the Court of Ava
 
Mandalay, October 1885
 
He was anxious for the health of his wife and their unborn child. More than a few of the old courtiers had already advised him to flee to the villages of his ancestors. Others told him to give in. But his generals, severe in their lacquered helmets and green and magenta velvet coats, promised they would do their best to hold back the advance of the enemy; some even voiced confidence

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Praise for The River of Lost Footsteps

"The best introduction yet available to the modern history of Burma. Sad and poignant, intelligent and thought-provoking."--William Dalrymple
"A balanced, fascinating, sometimes humorous account of nation-building."--Rory Stewart, author of The Places in Between and The Prince of the Marshes
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About the Author

Thant Myint-U

Thant Myint-U, born in 1966, was educated at Harvard and Cambridge. He has served on United Nations peacekeeping operations in Cambodia and Bosnia, and was more recently the head of policy planning in the UN Department of Political Affairs.

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The River of Lost Footsteps
A Personal History of Burma
Thant Myint-U

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks
January 2008
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780374531164
ISBN10: 0374531161
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 400 pages, Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations, a Map, a Bibliography, and an Index
$15.00
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e-Book Agency
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
May 2007
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9780374707903
ISBN10: 0374707901
400 pages, Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations, a Bibliography, and an Index
$9.99
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