ABOUT THIS BOOK

In the decades following its annexation to the Indian Empire in 1852, Lower Burma (the Irrawaddy-Sittang delta region) was transformed from an underdeveloped and sparsely populated backwater of the Konbaung Empire into the world’s largest exporter of rice. This seminal and far-reaching work focuses on two major aspects of that transformation: the growth of the agrarian sector of the rice industry of Lower Burma and the history of the plural society that evolved largely in response to rapid economic expansion.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael Adas is the Abraham E. Voorhees Professor of History at Rutgers University. He is author of Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance and Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission.

REVIEWS

“A rare combination of insight, sympathy, and intellectual rigor. . . . An outstandingly valuable contribution to Southeast Asian studies.”—Charles A. Fisher, American Political Science Review

“Adas has made a major contribution to the study of economic history and development of Burma and demonstrated most impressively what can be achieved by imaginative and careful scholarship to our understanding of colonial regimes in Southeast Asia.”—Albert D. Moscotti, Journal of Asian and African Studies

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Maps

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Citation of Selected Government Reports

Introduction

I. The Foundations of Social and Economic Development

1 The Delta Rice Frontier under Konbaung and Early British Rule

II. The Early Phase of Growth, 1852–1907

2 Internal Migration in the Last Half of the Nineteenth Century

3 Agrarian Development on the Advancing Rice Frontier

4 Indian Immigration to Lower Burma in the First Phase of Development

5 The Genesis of the Plural Society in Lower Burma: The Era of Symbiosis

III. The Decades of Transition, 1908–30

6 The Closing Rice Frontier and New Patterns of Agrarian Development

7 Changing Migration Patterns and the Rise of Competition in the Mature Plural Society

IV. The Years of Social and Economic Crises, 1931–41

8 The Depression and Burma's Time of Troubles: Communal Violence and Agrarian Rebellion

Conclusion

Glossary

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

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